


Twenty-One Breaths

by RurouniHime



Category: CSI: Crime Scene Investigation
Genre: Angst, Case Fic, Ensemble Cast, First Kiss, Hospital, Hurt/Comfort, Injury, M/M, Slow Build
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-07-22
Updated: 2011-07-22
Packaged: 2017-10-21 15:48:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 22,674
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/226888
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RurouniHime/pseuds/RurouniHime
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A bad week - a bad case - turns decidedly worse.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Twenty-One Breaths**

 **1.**

The hole was huge, a cave full of shadows. The moon beamed stark white onto the stucco façade, plunging the interior into inky darkness and coloring the yellow crime tape a sickly grey.

Nick rubbed his eyes.

He'd stared at it for hours, all told. Seen it the first time three days ago, studied it up close yesterday morning. And now he was back when he should have been sleeping, staring and staring, and hoping that some ridiculous glint of the moonlight would shower down epiphanies on his head.

"It's like he went straight through the wall," Warrick said on a sigh.

"You said that yesterday."

The other man's smile held nothing but strained patience. "I know that, Nicky. I said it the first day, too."

"Grissom said it the first day," Nick said mildly. Strange; the testier Warrick got, the calmer Nick felt himself becoming.

Warrick's words came through clenched teeth. "I said it first."

The hole still smelled of blood, faint as the moonlight. Nick stepped away from it carefully, avoiding the oddly placed flower beds. Geraniums here. Poppies there. Who put poppies on their front lawn? In the middle of their front lawn, rather. And on the side. And three feet in, four feet up from the sidewalk. Kitty-corner to the third patch of chrysanthemums.

The lawn was still somewhat soggy, despite the warm weather during the day.

"Alright, Rick. Take me through again."

Warrick capped his camera lens with another sigh. More disgusted this time. "He came up that way. Burned rubber for about five feet, then did it again across the sidewalk. Drove right over the lawn and rammed into the side of the house. Went in and stabbed her on her couch. Fuck. Didn't he even notice the door?"

Nick tracked across the lawn, stepping wide over the deep furrows cutting through the grass. They were dark and ugly, troughs of night. "Somehow, I don't think he cared, Rick."

"Perfectly good door," came the mutter from behind him. Nick shut his eyes.

It had been too long of a week. Overflowing case load, with Sofia downtown working a botched heist, and Catherine detailing a domestic abuse case. It didn't help that they were all stumped. Much too rare of an occurrence. Between the group of them, something always popped up. Except this time. The perpetrator had done enough damage to light up all the news shows in Vegas, and then left them behind to wallow in the mire until something new surfaced.

And there was a dead girl wrapped up in the morgue, waiting to be justified and buried.

"How did no one see this?" Nick snapped suddenly. He spun, looking up and down the block. All the neat little houses with darkened windows, all the pristine lawns and immaculate porches. "How do they not notice a car barreling into the neighbor's house?"

Warrick didn't even respond, just trudged over the grass and out into the street. He knelt, shining his flashlight down on the concrete for the umpteenth time. For a moment he just stared, and then his eyes narrowed. "Nick."

"Oh, please tell me you've found something new."

Warrick stood again and walked down the street to the first set of skid marks. They'd already traced the tire treads. Nick assumed Warrick's spot on the sidewalk. "What?"

"He burned rubber. Right here. And then again—"

Nick nodded. "Yes, and then he crossed the sidewalk, and then he chewed up the lawn, and then he smacked into the house. Yes, yes, yes."

Warrick frowned at him. "I think it was the boyfriend."

"Rick. We traced the treads. Same car, but the color's wrong."

Warrick's head dropped. "That's right. She said blue, didn't she?"

~

 _"Did you know both of them well?"_

 _She laughed. "You know, you probably don't want to ask me these questions. I'm not exactly unbiased when it comes to him."_

 _Nick smiled. "We're just trying to get your impressions, ma'am. Bias is part of the deal."_

 _"Well, then. The guy was a complete prick."_

 _"And what kind of vehicle did he drive?"_

 _"It was…" She sighed and looked skyward. But then her eyes snapped back, fixing on his face with frightening alacrity. "A blue Ford F-250."_

 _Nick peered at her. "Blue."_

 _"Yes, blue." She smirked. "A Super Duty."_

 _Nick raised an eyebrow. "I see you have a red Nissan there. With a busted front end."_

 _Her eyes narrowed. "You think I did that to her house? I skidded off the road two weeks ago and hit a pole."_

 _"I'll verify that when we're done here."_

 _"Go ahead, verify. My car's too small for that mess anyway." She swung a hand out at her driveway toward the aging Nissan Sentra. "I fucking hate trucks. He parked his in front of my driveway all the time. Drove the damn thing down the block to get beer."_

 _"What kind of condition was his vehicle in?"_

 _"Oh, it was well taken care of. He probably kept a picture of it in his wallet. Like some photo of your kid or something." She took a drag on her cigarette. "Dumbass drove it everywhere. He couldn't keep gas in it to save his life. She needed it for work a few times a week. They fought about it all the damn time. Probably the reason she kicked him out on his ass."_

 _Nick squinted. "She kicked him out?"_

 _"Not like she needed another reason, in my opinion. He had enough without the stupid car."_

~

"So he drives right into the house." It was getting darker. Nick wanted to leave. "Damnit, Rick, we still can't prove it wasn't some hopped up asshole who decided to rob the house and forgot to get out of his car before he did it."

Warrick was muttering. Nick looked down at the skid marks. They blurred, focused, wavered again. And then cleared.

Cleared.

"Wait a minute."

Warrick looked up. "Yeah?"

"At least we can prove he aimed for the wall. The treads over there… They're straight. Right?"

"For five feet."

"And then he gets here" - he pointed down at the sidewalk—"and then decides to go for the house. Warrick, he made a precise turn here."

"You can't know that, Nicky. He could have been drunk, he could have been swerving all over the place—"

"He missed all the flowers, Rick."

Grey eyes met his in the shadowy light. Nick stared back, feeling that fleeting triumph. "How does he drive a straight track down the street, then right between the flower beds, if he's not planning it? He meant to hit that place on that wall. On that room. Maybe he knew she was in there."

"She wasn't killed with a car, Nick."

"No. But she was killed on the couch in there. And she never had a chance to get up."

Warrick followed him to the rent in the wall and looked in. The red paint around the edges looked like black blood in the moonlight, paint they'd already chipped off and analyzed, to no avail. The house gaped, empty and full of echoes.

"Good, Nick. We have intent to smash a wall. And now we're right back where we started."

Nick's headache got worse.

 

 **2.**

 _The first night_

Nick stood in the dim living room. Flashing red and blue lights skittered over the white walls, a kaleidoscope of color through the massive hole in the east wall. He could hear muttering outside, the crunch of tires over gutter gravel. Reporters calling questions for the sheriff.

The scent of iron was thick on the air. Nick shut his eyes.

The woman on the couch slumped, one leg up, the foot of the other half-shoved into a Birkenstock sandal on the rug. Her throat was astonishingly white above the soaked red of her t-shirt. Tears in the fabric, and crimson seeping into the couch. Spattered, and seeping.

She should have stared at him. But her eyes had been slashed across.

Something in the air wavered. The lights seemed to shimmer against the walls. Nick swallowed, almost turned away. He could feel her staring.

"Whoever it was knew her." Sara, treading up behind. Her mouth twisted distastefully. "They went for her eyes."

Nick said nothing. Blood leeched down the woman's arm from her shoulder and dripped off her fingertips. The upper level of the house loomed silent and vast, shrouding the pool of light cast by the single lamp beside the couch.

Her blood gleamed deep rouge under the sallow bulb.

Nick dragged his eyes away. "Everyone here?"

Sara shook her head. Fiddled with her camera strap. "Sofia's downtown. Warrick's caught in traffic. And Grissom called Greg. Told him to stay there and wait for David to get back."

Nick looked at the dead woman out of the corner of his eye. She stared blankly, her face a white moon. "Greg's in the lab?"

"Working on Catherine's case."

"He won't be happy," Nick said. "He'd want to be here."

But he couldn't help but be glad Greg wouldn't get the chance to see this. To enter this room and feel the woman's sliced stare.

 

 **3.**

 _"Is water bad in this city?"_

 _"Excuse me?"_

 _She stared at him, lips pursed. "Is water bad in this city? You asked if I knew him, and I said—" She shook her head and tight black curls swung. "Are you sure you're a resident of Vegas?"_

 _Nick smiled thinly. "Have you seen him recently, Ms. Hartz?"_

 _She smirked. "He hasn't been here in three weeks, easy. But he stains the place. Might as well have been here. I still remember him."_

 _Nick shaded his eyes, and she motioned him forward into the shadow of her porch. "Were they on good terms?"_

 _"Hardly." She leaned against the screen. It creaked threateningly. "Maybe once, but not for a while now."_

 

 **4.**

 _The second night_

Sara's grimace was so pronounced that Nick winced. Her words held a neutrality that was centimeters away from breaking. "So. We've got a possible vehicle, but it's the wrong color."

"Yep."

"We've got a recent and ugly breakup, but no evidence the boyfriend has been here in three weeks."

"Yep."

"We've got not only a rammed wall, but a totaled Toyota in the drive. Two collisions with the same car, probably within the same ten minutes."

Nick nodded. "Same battering device, too."

"We've got metal flecks from the most popular detachable truck grating in the country, and no way to track who might have bought it."

"Yep."

Sara yanked off her gloves viciously. "You have got to be kidding me!"

Nick sighed. "Nope."

She shot him a withering glare. Nick wiped his arm over his forehead. "Sorry, Sara. One of those days."

"One of those _weeks_ ," she muttered. He followed her as she walked back toward the house. He could see Grissom through the hole in the wall, sifting through some stacks of something paper-like on the coffee table. Warrick leaned against a tree a few houses down, a half-full water bottle dangling from one hand, a sandwich in the other.

"Okay, look." Sara studied the ground as she walked, ever conscious of the possibility of evidence. "He nearly cut out her eyes. It's personal; has to be someone close enough for her to hurt, even if she didn't intend to."

"Sara, I think we're all in agreement that it's the boyfriend." Nick stopped, smirking. "Well. Except Grissom."

Sara rolled her eyes. "He just doesn't say it. I know he's thinking it." She nodded. "I know."

"Right."

Sara's smile was sarcastic, and something else. "Did Greg trace the refraction on that paint?"

Nick blew out a breath. " _Yes_. Sara. He did. All the way to the dealer's. But without the actual truck, the trail stops right there."

She shook her head, lips pursed tightly. "He picked a time when none of them were home or apt to look out their windows. That's just about impossible. Someone's lying."

Nick shaded his eyes and looked down the block. It simmered in the summer heat. "Well, he did live here for over a year. He could have known their schedules."

Sara huffed. "Nick, from what they've all been telling us, does he sound like the type to care about anybody's life but his own?"

Nick looked at her. The sinking sunlight looked eerie across her face. "Depends on how badly he wanted to do this to Martina Hedgecock."

Sara huffed and went back to perusing the ground. Nick squinted at the newest car coming down the blocked off street. "Uh oh."

"What?" But he needn't have answered. The car pulled up to the curb across the street and Conrad Ecklie got out.

"Great," Sara muttered. She strode onto the lawn and hunkered down next to the deep ruts left by the vehicle. "We can even match his vehicle to these, and we still can't prove it was him."

"We need the truck to do that, Sara."

"The hose was on. There'd be mud all over the wheels. He ran into her wall. There's more than enough paint scratched off to show the metal frame. We've got his fingerprints from inside the house." She snapped her head up, scowling. "Are you sure there's nothing from trace?"

"Yes, Sara, Greg has been over the paint and the blood and the mud and the metal flecks three times each! All we have is Martina Hedgecock, on a couch, and a red F-250 with a detachable metal grill battering through her living room wall. Nothing we didn't have last night."

Sara jerked her sunglasses off her face. "You know, I just finished that case - triple homicide - two nights ago. I should be in bed. This should have been my day off, and of course, I'm nowhere near my bed. And no one knows jack shit about what happened, so I can't _go_ back home and crawl in bed, I have to be here."

"You know what, Sara? Be sure not to leave off the part where all of us were working that triple with you," Nick shot back, unable to hold onto his sinking patience any longer. Sara narrowed her eyes at him.

"Well, we can't all be off today, Nick," was all she said. Nick shook his head and stepped off the lawn, leaving her to her treads, furrows, and gripes. He made it halfway into the street before realizing how unproductive his reaction was, and turned back with a sigh.

"Look. He can't have gone far. According to the neighbors, he has no family in the state, and not enough of a livelihood to skip town. This was his house; he has to be staying somewhere. An apartment, or at a friend's. If we could just get a warrant for his place of employment—"

"Well, well. Making progress yet?"

And that would be Ecklie. Nick drew a breath and turned to find the assistant director standing further up the lawn, raised eyebrow and half-smirk all too familiar. How he'd managed to get there without either of them noticing was beyond Nick. He resisted the urge to scrub his eyes with his palms. "Hey, Ecklie."

"Thought I'd come by and see how things were going here." Ecklie's second brow rose to join his first. "Things are going, aren't they?"

Nick stripped one glove off to rub the sweat from his palm. "They're going."

The look on the man's face did not even attempt to cover his disbelief. "The way it looks at the lab, you guys are already at a dead end. Sanders had nothing, absolutely nothing. You have something for me, or do I need to stick around and wait, Stokes?"

"Nice to see that day shift is so busy," Sara quipped. Ecklie frowned down at her, but didn't comment. He turned back to Nick.

"I'm going to have to leave you guys short again. Curtis needs Brass. Cover the rest of the neighbors tonight, or bring them down to the station and finish up there."

Nick forced himself to unclench his jaw. "You do realize there are still six houses to cover? People we couldn't get to yesterday?" It felt good to lean over the border into unacceptable, as far as his tone went. He rarely felt the need to indulge, but Ecklie made it so much easier. The idea of the man hovering over Greg's shoulder, pumping him for information as he worked, was more than enough.

The assistant director eyed him balefully. "Get Warrick off his break."

Sara stood up quickly, but Nick didn't let her get started. "He's been working straight for six hours. He needs a little time, Ecklie."

"He'll have it, once his shift if through. Until then, I don't pay him to stand around admiring the neighborhood."

This time, Nick wasn't fast enough.

"You know what, Ecklie, I don't really see what there is to admire here." Sara stepped around the rut in the grass, never breaking her smoldering stare. "There's a blood-soaked living room, a gouged out lawn, a dead woman, and four CSIs who can't do a thing about it because their time is being taken up explaining the situation to someone who shouldn't even be here."

Nick's first instinct was to back away. Possibly make an attempt for his car, or Warrick. If he didn't find Ecklie so irritating, he might have. Ecklie swiveled to face Sara very slowly, eyes glittering, face settling into a hard mask.

"I'm checking up on your progress, Sidle. Which is, incidentally, predictably insignificant."

"Well, maybe if we had enough time to sleep, or enough space to breathe, _Ecklie_ , we could think clearly enough to work this case," Sara shot back.

Ecklie scowled. Nick almost felt the air snapping. The director stepped forward, right in front of Sara, nose to nose. "You know what, Sidle? If I didn't need every CSI available right now, I'd suspend you."

"Conrad!"

Nick turned and saw Grissom standing in the doorway of the house. He looked more than ticked off. But for some reason, Nick didn't feel comforted.

 

 **5.**

 _Now_

The lab was very quiet when Nick pushed through the doors. His footsteps echoed down the hallways, the soles of his shoes squeaking as he rounded the corners. God, what was on the bottom of his shoes? Mud. He didn't remember walking through it, and he certainly hadn't at the crime scene. But did it really matter? They were a mess and he would never feel like any of his clothes were clean after processing that scene three days ago anyway, and there was absolutely no sense getting worked up about it, but everything was worth getting worked up over now. It was that hazy hour between midnight and sunrise when the hush of the world was enough to send a person into insanity if he was already sitting on the edge. Nick could see the drop-off from here, and he didn't like the look of it.

He passed Archie in his lab, nose glued to the grainy screen in front of him. Sofia's tapes, or a bad rendition of them. It was as if the criminals in Vegas were all working against them this week, more so than usual, purposefully choosing badly surveyed places to rob or idiotically inattentive neighborhoods to crash cars into. Perhaps with the hope of driving them all to grab rifles and start picking pedestrians off from the roof of the lab.

A few more days and it might not be such a funny idea.

Grissom's office light was on and the shades were at half mast. Nick thought about going in, saying hello. He decided against it. He really just wanted to drop off his sample and go back to that forlorn little table to pore over Martina Hedgecock's clothing and personal effects one more time. Three more times. However long it took to get the identity of her attacker out of them.

The lab was warmer than the darkened, broken little house he'd just come from. The scent of cleaning solvent twinged in his nostrils, strangely comforting. Nick rubbed one hand over his arm and swallowed. Stopped in the hallway and blinked.

This place didn't even feel like home this week. And it was sad enough that it usually _did_ feel like home. Home away from home, away from home. How many homes did he have? Nick shook his head. The real question was, how many homes did he willingly want to return to? This one, this lab and this family… These days it lacked something crucial. The absence of it, whatever it was, hurt him physically.

"Greg," he said to himself to jar his mind from its stagnation. "Get the paint to Greg. Drink an illegal amount of coffee. Research. Find the man who killed her."

Warrick was right; it was the boyfriend, Nick was sure of it. It just felt like the correct answer. And now, thanks to his extreme stubbornness - fine line between that and stupidity, really - they might actually have a thin thread to connect to the guy. But that depended on time, and tests. And Greg Sanders.

Nick rounded the last corner and saw the DNA lab up ahead. Light flooded into the dim hallways through the glass, illuminating Greg's blue lab coat and bent head. Even his short hair looked limp, sweeping down over his eyes as he adjusted something under his microscope. Nick sighed and paused, watching. Poor guy had been in the lab for the duration of the case. As much as Nick had felt relieved that Greg wouldn't see that particular crime scene, he couldn't ignore the unfairness of it. Greg was able, willing, and eager to please. He more or less attacked each project with a vigor that, even if it resulted in incorrect conclusions, kept Greg on the path until the real answers were found. Even if it meant crawling down a sewer or going through an entire garbage bag full of matchbooks by hand. He hadn't the experience yet, but he had the dedication.

If only Nick didn't have to watch him fade in order to get that experience.

Nick opened the door to the lab quietly. Greg never looked up; just turned the microscope knob slowly, again, again. Stared through the lens. His shoulders drooped under his coat, and he lifted an absent hand to rub at his right temple. Nick cleared his throat and Greg jumped and looked up.

Brown eyes took a second to focus. Greg's face relaxed. "Nick. Hey."

"Hey." Nick smiled faintly. Greg's eyes were dull, shadowed underneath. He blinked a couple times, and Nick felt his camaraderie fading, being replaced by something ominous.

Those eyes weren't young anymore. They were in a young face, above a young smile, but they… were aging. A chill shifted in Nick's belly. How long had that been different? He stared, trying not to stare, and yet he needed to know. Wanted the answer to be there in the depths of earthen irises.

How long had Greg's eyes been dying? Too many murders, too much blood, and too many lessons slammed into him day after day. Nick searched and suddenly realized he couldn't see the humor anywhere in Greg's face, not in his eyes or the tilt of his mouth, and it frightened him, icy and sharp as a blade. There was a proper rate to growth, to age, and Greg was rushing ahead, being rushed ahead by all of them, and it was slowly destroying everything Nick had come to count on in his friend's demeanor.

 _A bad week,_ his mind said softly. _It's just been a bad week. Give it time._ But standing there in the same room, mere feet away and staring directly at the hard-won awareness sucking the vitality out of Greg's body, it was very hard to deny.

It made Nick wonder how he himself looked to Greg. Had he ever seemed young?

"Where is everyone?" he said, trying to derail his morbid train of thought.

Greg shook his head and stepped away from the microscope, moving toward him. "Jacqui's got pneumonia. Wendy's in Cancun, the bum. And I have no idea where anyone else is. I barely know where I am." He thought for a moment, and then arced a thumb in the direction of the hall. "Bobby's in ballistics, I think. Maybe."

"Maybe he's in ballistics?"

Greg snorted, and even that sounded tired. "Maybe I _think_."

Nick knew the feeling.

"I've got something on the Hedgecock case. Went back to that wall and took another scraping. I think there's a paint layer other than the red there. It didn't come up before because of the layers of wall paint on the house."

Greg removed whatever it was he had under the microscope, and Nick saw that it was actually a lens cleaner. The younger man nodded. "The battering ram?"

"No, something else. Maybe the original color of the vehicle. I need you to get me some specs on it."

Greg stretched one arm over his head and nodded again, closing his eyes. "Put it in lock-up. It's still open. I'll get to it tomorrow."

Nick sighed. "Actually, I was prepared to buy you a beer if you put it before everything else. Or something more. What's the going rate these days?"

Greg's lips quirked. "Beer's fine. But it won't take long. I could do it for you first anyway."

Nick's chest loosened for the first time in days. Amazing what a little act of sympathy could do to a stressed out person. "Thanks, Greg. I owe you one."

Greg waved him away, flicking off the light under the scope. "Probably more than that by now. I'll get it done first thing."

Something about that sounded wrong. Nick frowned vaguely at the bare countertop. "I was going to stay. Have another look at Martina's clothing. How long do you think it'll take?"

This time Greg really did look confused. He stared at Nick for a long instant - would have seemed longer if Nick were feeling lucid - and then his eyes widened and he exhaled. "Oh—no, I meant tomorrow. I'm headed home."

Nick's frown grew deeper. He looked down at the sample container in his hand. "You are."

Greg pulled one latex glove off and set about checking the various drawers, making sure they were locked. His hand hovered for an infinitesimal instant, and then he lifted the fume hood and checked the gas on the burner underneath. Nick watched silently.

"Wendy's off. We're understaffed for dayshift."

The explanation fell short somehow in Nick's head. His hand clenched around his sample container. "Greg, if you're the only one, then I really need you to analyze this for me. Tonight."

Greg's sigh was audible. He bent, scrutinizing the microscope one more time, sliding the protective covering over it. His hands were still moving too quickly. Or maybe it was just Nick's own nerves.

"And I promise, I'll do it first thing tomorrow. Sofia'll have my balls, but I'll just tell her…" He pressed a hand to his forehead. "I'll tell her something."

The mess that had been building throughout the week finally cinched its last inch and snapped in his chest. Nick clenched his jaw. "Oh, that's just great, Greg. Go home. It'll wait."

Greg's hands stilled. He raised his head from the microscope and met Nick's gaze steadily. "And what's that supposed to mean?"

Nick nodded. "It's nice to see that this profession means so much to you. And here I thought you really wanted it."

Greg's eyes narrowed. "I am off shift," he said slowly and deliberately. "I'm going home. To sleep."

Such a charming idea. Something none of them had managed for the last week, something that Nick had certainly not experienced in days. His legs hurt, his neck was sore from craning it every which way, trying to find a single lead in a swamp of detritus, and now he had something, and maybe it was nothing, but he wouldn't know until tomorrow because Greg Sanders was going home to sleep. "You think any of us have gotten sleep, Greg? Let me fill you in on this job; sometimes you don't get to sleep. Sometimes the evidence just piles up and you don't get to sleep."

The weariness around Greg's mouth changed. Nick could see he was getting angry, something that almost never happened, partially because he knew Greg hadn't had the guts to really get angry around any of them until recently. "Nick, I will get to it once the other stuff is done," he grated out.

"I'm going to ask you a question, Greg. How much do you really want this job? To be a CSI? Because you'll never make level two if you can't handle this kind of overload."

Greg shook his head. He tore off his other glove and slung them both into the wastebasket, then shrugged out of his lab coat and flung it over the stool in the corner. "I have been handling it. I haven't even been out of this damn lab for two days! Catherine needs her blood swabs finished, and there are four different DNA samples there, at the very least. I can't get to yours tonight, Nick. Hell, I can't even get to Sofia's because of Ecklie and the dayshift. I'm going. Home."

"That's a hell of an attitude, Greg. You're a good CSI, I thought you wanted this more than that."

"Yeah, well, maybe I'm sick of everyone treating me like I'm not already giving my all," Greg shot back.

"From my standpoint, it doesn't look like you are!" Nick resisted the urge to fling something at the other man's head. "Look. Greg." He lowered his voice, but couldn't keep the disappointment out. "You knew what this was going to be like when you signed on. It's a bad week. It's always a bad week. But you can't just let it ride. This stuff is time sensitive. People are dead—"

"I know that!" Greg shoved past him and grabbed his jacket from the wall, raking a hand through his hair. The weariness was more than apparent, but Nick knew it couldn't be worse than his own weariness, that they were all feeling it, that even now, Catherine was pulling an all-nighter on her off-night, and that Grissom had not left his office in days, except to go to the scene.

Greg turned back for just a moment, eyes snapping darkly. "I can't think anymore tonight, Nick. I nearly knocked over the stupid tray of samples a half hour ago. Twice. I'm done for the night! The rest will have to wait!"

"Is that what you want me to tell Warrick when he gets back?"

"You can tell him whatever you want. Or you can run the damn tests yourself. See how it goes for you, because I cannot possibly think straight enough to do this."

"Fine." Nick stepped aside, glaring at the other man. "Fine, Greg, do what you think is necessary. Just make sure you let Grissom know you're going on the way out."

"You know, at least I know my limits, Nick!"

"I know my limits, Sanders, I just haven't reached them yet. And I won't, until I have some answers to my questions. Which brings me to you. Of _course_."

For one interminable moment, Greg looked like he might spit words back at him, something nasty and angry, and probably true, but still incomparable to the sheer amount of work that had to be done. But he said nothing. He grabbed his jacket and shouldered his way past Nick through the door. Once there, however, he turned.

"You can keep your CSI Two, Nick. Obviously, I'm not qualified."

"Couldn't agree more, Greg."

Greg's lips whitened. He let out a harsh breath and gestured dismissively at Nick before storming out the door.

 

 **6.**

"Nick, I want to talk to you."

Nick halted, finding himself in front of the open door to Grissom's office. The older man was leaning sideways in his chair, looking at Nick expectantly. Grissom motioned with his head. "Tonight?"

"Yeah. Sorry." Nick sighed and came through the door, swinging it shut behind him. He stood in front of Grissom's desk, still holding the file he'd been leafing through. "What's up?"

Grissom squinted at him. "How are you feeling, Nick?"

"I'm good." He smiled at Grissom, but his supervisor returned only a blink. The man sat back in his chair. Nick shifted on his feet, suddenly feeling like a bug under a microscope.

"You sure?" Grissom said quietly.

Nick looked back at him for several seconds, and then shut his eyes. "I'm tired, Gris. It's been a long week."

"Yes, it has." It was flat, rather toneless. Grissom did not look especially amused. Nick felt the beginnings of a frown on his own face.

Finally, his supervisor sighed. "Nick, you want to tell me what Greg did to get you so riled?"

Of course. Sound carried, especially in a nearly empty lab. Nick shook his head, pacing back toward the door. He leaned against it and crossed his arms over his chest. "You heard that."

A single nod. "I did."

Nick raised his hands. "Look, I know. Come to you first. I don't know, I just… I snapped. I'm sorry. Next time I'll let you deal with it."

"Actually, I was going to suggest that next time you cut him a little slack." Grissom's stare held nothing of the understanding Nick had been expecting. He studied Nick shrewdly, not bothering to hide his displeasure.

Nick straightened. Looked at his supervisor for a long while before speaking. "Grissom, he refused to process evidence for trace."

"And I believe he told you why?"

"He told me he was leaving," Nick said, a little too forcefully. He moved over to Grissom's desk and placed the open file between them, then leaned over it, bracing himself on his hands. "I got new evidence from Hedgecock's house. I asked him to process it, and he decided to go home instead."

Grissom didn't even bother to give the folder a glance. This time the frown felt much more pronounced to Nick. He exhaled exasperatedly and jabbed a finger at the pictures on top with one finger. "Grissom, I'm not just being difficult! I need him to analyze that new paint. That, and the fact that the perp purposefully drove into that wall, and we may have enough to get a warrant for the boyfriend's place of employment."

"Shaky, at best."

Nick stepped away from the desk, yanking a hand through his hair. Funny, the habits he'd picked up. He didn't even have hair long enough to make it worthwhile. "Since when did you start throwing out the tiny details?" he asked, more bitterly than he'd intended, but it hurt to hear Grissom slam him like that when he knew damn well that his supervisor had gone for warrants on far less.

Grissom looked up at him slowly and Nick knew he'd stepped over some very faint line somewhere. The older man studied him until it became frightening. "Go home, Nick. Go to sleep."

"If it's all the same to you, I'm going to analyze that paint. While Sanders sleeps."

Grissom's eyes hooded. He straightened in his chair and shut the file with the precision of tempered annoyance. "He finished his second double shift in three days tonight. Were you aware of that?"

Nick snorted, taking the file off the desk. "We've all been pulling doubles, Gris. Rick, me, even Sara. It's a lousy week, but it happens, and he needs to get used to that or he needs to quit."

"You know, Nick, this is precisely why you need to go home." Grissom rose from his chair, his gaze never leaving Nick's face. "You're tired. You're overwrought. You certainly aren't thinking clearly because the Nick Stokes I know would not stoop to this level of sniping."

The warning was clear. Nick clutched the file and wavered between making it worse and giving in. Knowing that he wouldn't sleep tonight even if he did give up and go home wasn't making it any better. But… in the end, it was the fact that he was facing Grissom that turned his thoughts. Grissom, his supervisor and his friend. With the power - and willingness - to take him right off the case altogether, regardless of what Ecklie might think about not utilizing all available manpower.

The last thing Nick needed was to make himself "unavailable."

"Alright," he ground out, struggling to keep his face from falling into the scowl it desperately wanted. "You want me to go, I'm gone. I'll be back tonight."

"Good," Grissom said calmly. Nick stared at him. How in the world did the man swing so quickly between moods? Did he have them stored up somewhere, awaiting the perfect moment to infuriate his coworkers? Nick turned away abruptly, more annoyed than he wanted to admit.

 _Don't blow it. This is your lack of sleep talking._ But it was also Martina Hedgecock talking, and it was Nick Stokes talking, too, and Nick knew that if he didn't leave right that minute, he was going to say something that no amount of unpaid overtime could correct.

"Fine." He tossed the file back onto Grissom's desk, then stalked into the hallway, letting the door slam behind him. The lab was starkly silent save for the ghostly buzz of monitors and the central air system. His headache shifted behind his eyes all over again, and Nick cursed, shoving through the glass doors and out into the night.

 

 **7.**

A day later, the moon was full.

Nick picked his way down the alley, stepping over the debris. It was a dark alley, maybe two body-lengths wide, and the warehouses on either side towered, blocking out most of the pinprick stars. His flashlight beamed Coke bottles, ripped newspaper, and cardboard into existence, and then swung away and left them to the darkness again.

The alley was wide enough to fit a truck such as Jordan Simco's Super Duty, even one with a wide-set wheel base, though only barely. Nick shone his light on the garage door at the far end. Most likely for delivery trucks, though the rust on the handle and the chipped paint put it more in the category of "forgotten" than anything else.

He heard someone stumble over something metallic, and then Sara's distinctive cursing. Further back, Warrick was gamely pointing out some of the more interesting trash lining the walls to Greg. Nick turned and squinted up the alley. Brass' team of officers were there, opening up the warehouses on either side. They'd already been down the alley itself, and though he couldn't see the police cars, he could hear them churning over the gravel lots, the slam of various closing doors.

Grissom was right: it had been shaky. A tiny paint scraping with double layers, and a truck registered to Jordan Simco had managed to commandeer them a warrant for the car parts warehouse he worked at, as well as all the property under their lease, including this alleyway and the abandoned garage at the end of it. Nick knew they were lucky; the judge had been in an extremely good mood, thanks to the birth of his new granddaughter. It hadn't taken a much wheedling as he'd thought it would.

Then again, Nick hadn't been the one to do the wheedling.

But it was good to be out of the lab, and in a new place. Martina Hedgecock's home was more than creepy now; Nick found himself jumping at shadows and ready to snap at just about everyone for the slightest of annoyances. They all needed a change of scene. Or more sleep. And he knew how likely the latter was.

The garage door was so scratched that it was impossible to tell whether the paint was white over dark metal or vice versa. A completely rusted and fragile-looking lock secured the door down by its base. Nick snapped photos, then turned around. "Sara, you have anything to open this?"

She stuck her flashlight under her arm and rummaged in her case, then pulled out a compact tool, snicking it open and shut twice. "Bolt cutters," she said, grinning toothily.

Oh, she was enjoying this far too much. Nick shook his head and took the cutters from her, stepping back to get more leverage in case the lock proved to be stubborn. But as he nudged the lock with the cutter, it clinked apart. Nick stooped and shone his flashlight on it, noting the cleanly severed bolt. "Never mind, Sara. Someone's done our job for us."

"Our guy, you think?"

"Hm." Nick loosened the lock with the tips of his fingers and dropped it into an evidence bag. The rust was so corrosive that fingerprints were unlikely. Maybe some partials. "Opening it up."

He gripped the base of the garage door with one hand, worked his fingers under it, and heaved upward. It didn't budge past the first inch. Nick slipped his flashlight into his belt, tucked the cutters alongside it, and pulled on the door with both hands. It slid up with a protesting groan, revealing a dark recess and light glinting off of plastic headlamps. Nick smiled.

"Got a red Ford."

He heard footsteps behind, and three flashlight beams shot past him into the garage. It wasn't as deep as he'd thought; the truck barely fit without bumping either the back wall or the garage door, but there were nooks and crannies in the back, cluttered with old, dusty-looking items. It was easy to see into every corner: There was no one inside. Nick turned around and saw the smirk on Warrick's face.

"Alright," Nick said, jovial for the first time in days. "We've got a garage full of stuff to go through and an alleyway he could have tracked any amount of incriminating evidence down. Warrick?"

"Alleyway," his friend said promptly. "I'm done with paint scrapings."

"I'll take the garage then." He turned to the other two. "Who wants what?"

Greg looked at him through the weighted silence. Nick felt heat climb over the back of his neck. The other man's eyes slid away.

"I'll take the alley," Greg said in a low, even voice.

Sara shrugged and headed into the garage, casting a single look at Greg's retreating back. Nick watched the youngest CSI move away, flashlight already tracking over the loose trash and packed gravel of the alley. He fought a grimace.

Part of him still wanted to blame Greg for his discomfort. He hadn't seen him since their shouting match in the lab. Hadn't even thought about it until now, except to remember how ticked off he'd been with the other man. But the way Greg had stared at him, veiled and far from the guileless curiosity he usually exhibited… Nick wanted a hole to crawl into, or a wall he could conceal himself behind while he sorted out whether he was still angry or not.

He was. There wasn't any doubt, really. But he also wasn't. Half of him knew he'd been out of line. The other half told him he had been absolutely within his rights.

Greg's white button-down shirt gleamed under the bright moonlight, his hair a dark crop hovering above the neckline. He bent to photograph something on the ground, slipped the object into a bag, and continued his diligent pace toward the mouth of the alley. Nick turned away, shaking his head to clear it.

In the end, his behavior had helped neither of them. Nick couldn't recall exactly what had set him off. An inflection of Greg's words? A sore muscle twingeing at the wrong moment? Greg's ready dismissal of his duties?

Or maybe it hadn't been Greg at all.

Nick sighed and moved toward the truck, trying to shove his thoughts aside in favor of the task at hand. They had a lot to process here; it could hold the answer to every riddle this case had thrown at them. He studied the truck from a few feet back. Black inside, with illegally tinted windows. Nick frowned. "Makes perfect sense."

Sara walked by on the other side of the truck. She stopped, stuck her nose nearly against the glass of the driver's side window, and beamed her flashlight in, squinting. "Truck's empty," she said after a moment. She maneuvered the handle carefully. "And locked."

Nick walked further back and stretched, levering off the side of the truck with two fingers. He angled his light into the bed, prepared for the likelihood of a hiding owner. But there was nothing except dirt and a black rubber lining. "Nothing in the bed."

"I'm going to check out the mess back here. Maybe he left something of his."

"Like keys?"

She snorted. Nick heard her footsteps as she made her way to the back of the garage. It was a small one, relatively. Couldn't have fit more than two delivery vans at any one time. He surveyed the front of the truck, noting the divots in the bumper. Where a grill had been screwed on, perhaps? Nick snapped more pictures. Crouched down and took a scraping of the metal shavings from inside one of the tiny holes. He moved around to the side and shone his light on the wheel well.

"Mud, Sara. All over the treads and spattered up the underside."

"Told you," she sang back.

"Ha ha." He took a sample of that as well. "Can we take this thing with us? I'd like it in the lab instead of out here. Better lighting."

Sara's reply sounded far off. "Technically, the warrant covers everything in this garage."

Warrick's voice floated in from the alley, but Nick couldn't make out the words. It sounded like he was chatting across the way to Greg. For a moment, his weariness felt a bit lighter. This, this was more what he recognized. What he missed. Maybe they'd all just been too harried this week to remember each other and what it was like to work together.

He scooted around the edge of the bumper and surveyed the paint job. Definitely red with an undercoat of blue. And yes, there was the metal frame peeking through. The scarring of the paint job went all up the side, streaking toward the passenger-side door in long, jagged scratches. Nick was willing to bet the other side looked exactly the same.

"Ran into a house, did you?" he said softly, smirking at the truck. He could smell various engine fluids, and thought about shimmying underneath the vehicle to have a look. They'd have to fingerprint the doors and the area around where the grill had been, and that was saying nothing about going through the inside. Nick straightened a bit from his crouch, peering at the dented front door inches away. It was hard to tell in this light, especially with the red paint, but it looked like there might be trace amounts of blood. Or dirt. Nick reached for his case to get a swab.

He wasn't prepared for the truck to roar to life.

His feet moved on their own, jettisoning him away from the vehicle. It gave a horrible grind and screeched backward. Nick had the slightest of seconds - shit _shit_ , searching for anything large enough to get him off the ground and out of the truck's way - before the transmission veritably shrieked and the truck rocketed forward.

Nick heard Warrick still calling across the alley outside, or maybe yelling new things, and then there was the image of something else in his head, something too damned gaping to contemplate. The truck swung out of the garage, clipping the side, and Nick raced after it, shoes sliding and finding purchase in oil and water.

"No, go back, go _back!_ " He ran, waving his arms. Warrick saw, lurched to the left and rolled along filthy pavement, but Greg - Greg was facing the wrong way—

The truck swerved, catching Greg across the hip, smacking into the back of his thigh - he whirled without a sound - his case clattered to the pavement - Greg spun, was lifted, and slammed back-first against the brick façade. His mouth opened. Shut. Greg looked for Nick, met his eyes, and slid slowly down the wall.

For an instant, Nick's vision went a piercing white.

Then it cleared and he had never stopped running. The alley was awash in red, Greg was red from the truck's bouncing taillights. Nick skidded to his knees, barely feeling the burn. "Greg? Greg—"

"Sonofabitch!" Warrick shouted, but it fast became white noise in Nick's ears. Greg's eyes were wide and dull, an ugly, ugly combination. Nick felt clammy skin under his palms and realized he was holding Greg's face. He let go, then cupped his face again, then slid down to grip his shoulders. Greg's lips parted and breath shuddered into his body.

"N…" The name never quite passed his lips.

Shouting. The pounding of feet passed behind and Sara shot down the alleyway, running full-tilt after the truck. "Brass! _Jim!_ "

Nick knew and felt sick: She'd been deep in the garage. Hadn't seen.

Warrick grabbed his shoulder. It hurt; Nick fought not to shake him off. "Nicky, is he—"

Greg's head jerked. One hand splayed and curled over his left side. Nick covered the area as gently as his quaking hand would allow. Greg's face shivered like leaves in the wind.

"Rick, get an ambulance." He couldn't give voice to the loose sag under his palm, the odd heat where there should only have been intact ribs. He wanted to, but he couldn't.

Warrick scrambled to his feet and tore after Sara, yelling into his cell phone. There was a screech of brakes; the wail of a siren went sour and long, drowning out everything else, and then the searing crunch of metal on metal.

More shouting.

Nick knelt as close as he could, one knee between Greg's bent legs. "Hey. Hey…"

Greg swallowed. His eyes caught the light and slid shut. Nick hissed. "No, no, look at me. Greg? _Look_ at me."

Greg looked. His pupils were huge, nearly swallowing the earthy-brown irises. Afraid to put his hands in the wrong place, Nick held Greg's cheeks and slid his fingers through the strands of hair just above the younger man's ears. "Okay. Okay, Greggo. It's alright. Can you hear me?"

One slow nod, as if Greg were underwater. "Bit my… my tongue," he managed. His lips parted and Nick could indeed see rouge across the tip, coloring his lower lip.

He nodded, intent on Greg's head, feeling behind—until he touched warm wetness and froze. "Greg. Greggo, did your head hit? The wall, did it—"

Greg's head swayed in Nick's hands. "Don't know. I don't know."

Someone ran up, nearly ran by. Skidded to a stop. "Nick, it—Oh my _god_ —"

Sara? He honestly had no idea. Greg was staring over his shoulder at whoever it was, and there was something so familiar there, so utterly familiar.

In Greg's eyes, Nick saw a box.

They were the same eyes that had stared back at him from the mirror those weeks after he'd been pulled from the ground like some forgotten weed. Not the haunted eyes full of nightmares, but the empty ones that flickered in just before sleep, when Nick couldn't think about it all anymore. No more earth, no more ants, no more darkness. Just eyes he didn't recognize.

"Greggo, come on."

"I'm cold," Greg whispered.

God, he was going into shock. Nick settled Greg's head into one palm and yanked his arm free of his sleeve, then switched and did the other. Nearly ripped through the hem trying to work his jacket loose. He draped the coat over Greg's torso with his free hand.

"Didn't even hear… hear it, Nick," Greg said. Childish sorrow. Nick stopped moving. He could only look, fixed by the foreboding shadows gathering in Greg's youthful face.

"You should have been in the garage." It was choked out before he thought, before the folly of such a useless statement swung home. Greg's hand rose and curled around Nick's wrist.

"With you," he said in a dull voice.

"Greg." The word cracked alarmingly.

He couldn't really hear the shouts, the sounds of struggle and cuffs snapping into place beyond the alley, the thud of feet and the threat of guns - _don't move, put your face on the ground and don't move!_ Greg's eyes swam, locked on Nick's and held. His breath skated haphazardly over Nick's wrists. Nick bent closer, stroked through soft hair and across pallid skin, and held Greg's gaze a best he could.

A new siren, coming from far off and growing louder.

"Okay, Greggo, look right here, keep looking at me. They're coming. Just… They're coming."

 

 **8.**

The moment Greg's eyes actually shut and did not open again, the litany of words froze in Nick's throat, his hand froze around Greg's, and his mind just froze.

He couldn't _believe_ it.

The ambulance rocked, swerving around a corner, and then— "No. No, no, Greg? Greg, open your eyes, _Sanders!_ Open your eyes!"

He grappled at Greg's throat for a pulse, and the EMT took over, shoving Nick's hands away unceremoniously and pressing a stethoscope to the expanse of bare chest revealed by Greg's open shirt. There was blood on Greg's cheeks, thin streaks of it; his hair had become a damp, reddish mess against the gurney, and Nick could see the hideous bruises, almost black, sweeping up Greg's left side, engulfing his ribs and most of his stomach.

Each second took too long as the EMT listened.

"He's unconscious," the woman barked sharply. She touched Greg's head, sought for fresh bandages with her free hand. "He's breathing."

Nick found he was squeezing the younger man's fingers much too hard. But to let go, to actually let go was— "Greggo, you open your eyes right now or I—"

But Greg didn't, and the ambulance screeched into the hospital bay with nothing more than the flutter of a single eyelid. They opened the doors, wheeled Greg into the Emergency Room at a run, and Nick followed at their heels, still trying to catch his breath.

~tbc~


	2. Chapter 2

**9.**

He remembered sitting, but not the finding of a seat. The taste of stale frenzy was on the air; nurses rushed, guided injured people past him, carried IV bags and sterile needles. Doctors passed back and forth, their faces grim with whatever they'd just come from in the rooms and curtained-off areas beyond the front desk. Nick remembered one sitting down next to him, a man with a soothing voice but no news he wanted to hear. He recalled the doctor's gentle suggestion to wash himself up, and then looked down and found that his hands were still bloody, rust-red and flaking.

He remembered finding the restroom on unsteady feet. And he remembered sitting down again.

At some point, Catherine came down the hall, heels clacking a too-sharp staccato off the walls. She went right by Nick to the front desk and it wasn't until he rose from his seat that she saw him. Catherine stepped away from the nurse's station, her hands rising to her face.

"Nicky? Oh, Nick…"

He didn't remember opening his arms, but suddenly she was in them, hugging him too tightly, and the world was very, very still. At long last, she pulled back, sniffing. Her blue eyes were dry and walled up.

"How is he?"

Nick shook his head, suddenly very thankful for his predilection to compensate for other people's emotional failures. If Catherine broke, Nick knew he couldn't break, couldn't let it happen. His brain would not allow it. "He just went in. They haven't… haven't told me anything yet."

She nodded. And that was the last concrete thing he remembered about Catherine, except that she whirled into a determined wind, sitting him on his chair again and striding off to find a doctor, a nurse, the ambulance attendant, anyone who might have the least little bit of information. He remembered her talking loudly, demanding a timeline. He thought she might have told it to him once she found out. He remembered tears glistening down one of her cheeks, and he remembered her hand clasping his, warm and solid next to him in another chair. He remembered her phone ringing, and her swearing as she fumbled it open.

All he could think was that they'd checked the truck. It had been empty.

In the end, Catherine was several minutes gone before Nick looked up and realized that she had said goodbye, _I'll be back soon, they need me at the lab, you call if, if, when they tell you anything, Nicky, do you hear me, you call,_ and that he had nodded. And she'd gone.

And Nick sat.

Waited.

 

 **10.**

 _"Mr. Stokes—"_

 _"Nick."_

 _"Nick… You're friend has an intertrochanteric hip fracture. It's lower down, and it's one of the least dangerous hip fractures to have, but it's still very serious, especially considering the amount of bruising he's sustained. He's just been sent in to surgery. Would you like to sit down?"_

 _"No."_

 _"He has massive contusions along the left side of his body, but no internal hemorrhaging that we can see, which is a good sign. He avoided a broken femur, and his ribs seem to be intact, but it will take further exploration to make certain there aren't any fractures there as well."_

 _"Alright."_

 _"Nick, he's extremely lucky. His condition could be much worse. If he hadn't been facing away, if the truck had hit him from the front, or even sideways where his knee couldn't bend immediately—"_

 _"Will… will he walk again?"_

 _"This type of fracture has a very high rate of recovery. He'll need pins in the bones, but he should be able to walk very soon after the surgery. In fact, we encourage that."_

 _"That's…great."_

 _"Nick, there's something else. It's what I'm most concerned about. Your friend has suffered a severe concussion. We have yet to find out if there is more extensive damage. But I'm afraid we won't know much more until the surgery is completed."_

 _"He's bleeding."_

 _"Yes. He sustained a minor abrasion to the back of his head, most likely from contact with the wall. But it's a long cut. And that's the least of his problems, unfortunately."_

 

 **11.**

The jangle of his cell phone pulled Nick out of his thoughts, and he blinked. Groped in his pocket and flipped his phone open absently. "Hello?"

There was a pause. "Nick?"

Grissom. Nick shook his head to clear it. "Ye— Stokes."

And that sounded so professional. Nick's mind whirled dizzily for an instant. The voice on the other end quieted.

"Nicky, it's Grissom. Are you alright?"

"I'm—" He didn't know how he was. "He's in surgery," he said instead.

"Nick, have the doctors told you anything yet?" Grissom was speaking slowly, not enough to condescend, but enough to draw Nick back, center him on his wildly tilting axis.

Grissom. It was Grissom, and he'd asked him a question. Nick made a supreme effort to gather his thoughts. "He's… There's an inter—" _One more breath, come on, Stokes._ "An intertrochanteric hip fracture. No hemorrhaging internally. His ribs are— they don't think there was any breakage, and he has a lot of surface bruising. It's a good fracture to have, if you had to pick."

God, his thoughts were flying everywhere. It didn't even sound coherent to him, but Grissom did not ask him to explain again. "Alright, Nick. Did they say anything else?"

They had. It seemed to lift in and out of the fog, drifting down where Nick couldn't make sense of it, only to rise up again, unable to be ignored. Nick's jaw felt hot with the stress of clenching it. There was only one thing he could really focus on, looming like some creature in the darkness. "There's… He has a concussion, Gris. He hit his head, and they—It's—"

"Okay. Okay, Nick? He'll be alright. They're going to do the best they can. Alright? Nicky."

Nick nodded, and then remembered that Grissom couldn't see it. "Yeah. Yeah, alright. Yeah." He drew several deep breaths, listening to the waiting silence on the other end of the line. Grissom wasn't rushing him, was just letting him collect himself. Unbidden tears stung Nick's eyelids.

Damn it. He had to get himself together.

After a few more seconds, Nick blinked his eyes open and looked up at the white hospital ceiling. He swallowed. "Okay. Uh… Thank you, Grissom."

"You're welcome," Grissom said. Then he sighed. "Nick, there's another reason I called, and I know it's not a good time for it, but I need you to pull yourself together for a little while longer."

Nick nodded again. "What's—What's up?"

Grissom's voice came clearly over the line, still speaking slowly, patiently. "I need you to come back to the lab for just a little while to give a statement to Vartann. I sent Warrick over to the hospital. He's on his way, but I need you to come back. Just long enough to give them a statement about what happened. Can you do that?"

"I—" He blinked at the phone. "But what if he—"

He grimaced, suddenly unable to voice the implications aloud. Grissom heard them anyway.

"Nick, Warrick will be there, and he'll call us if anything happens. We need your statement to get this guy, to place him in the truck, Nicky. We need to know what you saw."

Yes. Yes, of course they did. It made sense to the less harried half of Nick's brain. He looked up at the front desk, at the nurses and doctors bustling around with their clipboards and stethoscopes. Heard the clack of typing from the receptionist's computer.

"Nick, it won't take long, but you need to come back now."

Repetition, the constant use of his name. Nick knew the tactic, the way to calm victims, to get them to focus. "Alright," he whispered. And then more clearly, "Alright."

"Good." He could practically see Grissom nodding his approval. "Wait for Warrick, and drive carefully, Nick. We want you here in one piece."

"Yeah," he said. The line clicked on Grissom's end, and Nick shut his phone with shaking hands. For a moment, he just stood in the white-washed hallway, staring at his silent little cell phone. Then sound swung back in on him. He took a deep breath and went to find an empty seat in which to wait for Warrick.

 

 **12.**

The drive back was quicker than he'd thought it would be. Nick parked Warrick's car in the lot and got out. The air was bitingly cold, coming in off the desert in slow gusts. He got five feet away from the car before remembering that he hadn't locked the door, and went back.

Sara had checked the truck. And the garage had been empty, any fool could see that just by looking in. The truck was too high off the ground to hide anyone underneath, and he'd looked in the bed himself.

Sara had checked the cabin.

Nick's steps slowed and then sped up again. Had they missed something? Maybe he'd been hiding in the back seat. But no, if he had climbed over the seat, the truck would have moved, at least a little bit. Nick's nose had been inches from the side of the truck; he couldn't have missed it. Could he?

Nick shoved the door open to find the lab swarming with people. He had no idea where they'd all come from; it was as if they'd magically appeared from wherever they'd been over the past week, just in time for this. Nick shook his head. _No, because of this, you idiot._

He'd checked that truck. Sara had checked the truck. It had been dark inside, but it was empty, she wouldn't have made a mistake about that.

There hadn't been space under the steering column, not for a grown man. But suddenly Nick was uncertain. Anything seemed possible, even the idea that the man had been sitting right there staring back at him when he'd glanced at the window.

Maybe the guy had been dressed in black, maybe Sara had just missed him, maybe Nick hadn't been looking hard enough and he'd—

And then the truck had started up. Roared out of the garage. Smacked right into—

Nick came around the corner so fast the world swerved. He skidded into the wall, pressing a palm there to right himself. His body wasn't behaving; strong and weak all at once. For one terrible second, he couldn't remember how to focus his eyes.

Hands gripped his shoulders. A familiar voice asked if he was alright. But he couldn't recognize it, didn't want to recognize it. He looked up, elsewhere, there were so many people that surely one of them would distract him, and a man came around the corner down the hall, flanked by officers, and Nick knew.

Knew that the man had driven the truck into Greg.

His eyes were hazel, roving the hallway. Fixing, darting again. The other voices in the lab became cotton in Nick's ears.

He recognized him, not with his eyes or because of the photos that had been scattered about a demolished and bloodied living room, but on a level much more primal. Deeper than dreams. His brain supplied the words: _boyfriend, driver._

 _Murderer._

Nick froze for the third time that night, unable to look away as the man passed down the hall.

 

 **13.**

"…no change? … Okay. Okay. And what did they say about his—Okay."

Nick slowed outside Grissom's office.

He wanted… Well. The statement had not taken long to give, and Nick couldn't remember any of it. He knew he would later, maybe tomorrow. He wanted to leave. To go back. To get away from the lab. He listened to Grissom's one-sided conversation, trying to decide whether to knock.

Grissom was silent for a long while. Then—"Have they contacted his parents?"

Nick swallowed. Grissom nodded. Nodded again. "Alright. I'll send Nick back with your truck. I need you at the warehouse again. … Yes, the garage door. We're going to match that paint to Hedgecock's wall. And Warrick?"

Grissom's face looked haggard. "We're going to need Greg's clothes," he said quietly.

Nick grimaced. His stomach rolled alarmingly. He turned away and headed for the bathroom and the sink there to wash his face.

 

 **14.**

Nick opened his eyes and found a glass wall three inches above him, and dark, moldy dirt above that. The scream was out of his mouth before he could think. He pounded the glass with his fists, twisting, kicking, smacking, crying, and the sound was muffled, there was a cold, metal _something_ in his hand, there was no air, and he pounded, pounded, beat against the glass—

And woke with a start.

The light was too bright. Nick jerked and nearly fell out of his chair onto clean linoleum. Something beeped in his ear, beeped again. Again. Nick blinked, already halfway to the ground, gripping the armrests of his seat so hard his wrists ached. He looked around.

The nondescript white walls of the hospital room gazed solemnly back at him. The door was open, and the sound of chatter, footsteps from outside in the hall, came to his ears. Nick rubbed his face with his palm, still not quite in the room, still tasting dirt and iron and whatever had been on that gag. He fixated on the window, then the silent television mounted on the wall, and then the bed beside his chair.

Greg lay on his back beneath the thin hospital blanket. His chest rose and fell shallowly. He was asleep; the same dark smudges hung beneath his eyes and pooled in the hollows of his cheeks.

Nick exhaled hard, and sat up. The sigh stuttered from his lungs in bursts. He leaned over, elbows on his knees, and covered his face in both hands. What time was it? He couldn't even remember falling asleep. Greg's monitor beeped, low and monotonous. Nick frowned and looked up irritably.

Like a clock. Tick, tock. Ticking.

He stood up, and then stopped, unsure why he'd risen in the first place. The room was warm, slightly stuffy. But Nick had felt that before in perfectly airy rooms after dreaming. He knew he only needed a few seconds to clear the haze from his mind. It was thicker today, and he was afraid to shut his eyes and wait for it, afraid of what might reappear in the blackness. Deep breaths. Greg's monitor sounded steadily.

Had he moved? Had he woken and drifted off again? Nick stared at his friend, searching— but there was no sign of Greg having regained consciousness. He lay in the same position he had been in all day, arms flat and still next to his body, legs straight out beneath the blanket. The skin of his left arm was mottled, a grotesque tortoiseshell of color. His IV wound a sinister coil into his wrist and the bag hung, full and bloated, like a large insect with no legs.

Nick's pulse thudded in his temples. He tried to breath again, to force himself into submission, but it wasn't working. The smell of the room - he couldn't distinguish what was tell-tale and what was real - sickened his stomach. _Can't leave him. You shouldn't just leave. What if he wakes up?_ But Greg hadn't moved, hadn't twitched in two days, and suddenly Nick couldn't even imagine movement from the body under those sheets, other than that slow, stilted breathing.

He had to leave. Couldn't stay in that room.

Nick made his way into the hallway, then to the stairs. His legs moved mechanically to the ground floor, and then outside, and before he knew it, he was walking briskly and the hospital had fallen behind, just another building among buildings. Nick took a deep breath, taking in the scents of the city, the warmth of summer - it was evening, he could smell it now, see the golden glow over the horizon. The air cleared away the last traces of his dream and Nick slowed to a more comfortable pace.

He didn't really have a destination in mind. The hospital again, eventually; he couldn't just leave for the night, not like this, but it was too much to stay there at the moment. To wait for a waking that might not come.

"Don't be stupid," he muttered to himself. "They said he'd wake up. Just a question of when." It was odd, feeling his fears at war with his knowledge. Each had a voice and he knew which was which, but neither one overrode the other for some reason.

The traffic was thick down the boulevard, the signs of store fronts and theaters winking on. The Las Vegas lights were changing, their ever-present shift from day to night, from natural to dazzling. Nick took several turns, walking aimlessly, not really seeing which venues he passed, which people he stepped aside to let by. The noise rose: laughter, the already drunken revels of tourists, the honk of impatient drivers. Nick took one last turn and the hospital came into view again, some blocks away. He headed back without a concrete decision, just knowing that that was where he was going tonight.

It was much busier when he returned. Ambulances tweaked their sirens, clearing the way as they left the bay. A pregnant woman was helped out of the car by her distraught husband. Nick watched a nurse wheel a chair out for the woman, waited for them to go inside, and followed them in. He took the elevator upstairs this time. The bright lighting greeted him beyond the doors, and he went down the hall, keeping toward the wall to avoid running into other people.

He reached Greg's room, but the murmur of a voice inside came through the open door, surprising him. Nick stopped just outside the doorway.

Grissom was in the room. And Greg's eyes were open.

Their supervisor sat, one hand extended to rest on the blanket. Greg's face was drawn tight, lined with a dull pain and pale enough to cast his eyes into shadow. But he looked at Grissom steadily as the man spoke. Nick heard words, broken and indistinct.

"Only a retirement event... you let it... Greg, your decision."

Greg murmured something too soft to make out and Grissom's face opened in a way Nick could only describe as paternal. For a moment, there was nothing to override the sadness lining his mouth and eyes. Grissom reached out and touched Greg's arm.

"It's not my place to tell you what to do." This time, as soft as Grissom's voice was, it carried. "I won't even try to make that decision for you. But Greg, we - all of us, not excluding me - we learn. We go on, we pick ourselves up."

Nick couldn't tell if Greg spoke, but Grissom answered. "You did fine. You did just fine out there."

Nick turned from the door and leaned against the wall. Rubbed his face.

The reality - the sanitary smell, the narrow doorway into that dimly lit room, the incessant beep of Greg's monitor - washed over him, and it wasn't the first time it had done so. But it hurt worse this time, carved deeper and cut more away. There was an age on Grissom's face, one that just had not _been_ there before. Sheer and full of weak spots that looked as though they would cave at any second.

Nick knew that Grissom was close enough to see what he could not: the purpling bruises covering Greg's left arm. The too-pale cast of his skin.

God— They'd come too close. _He'd_ come too close, to a loss he couldn't identify, because to identify it was to give it a name, to acknowledge the possibility of it actually happening. And he couldn't acknowledge that. The fact that it hadn't happened was no comfort; the shadow remained, an incontestable pendulum that might swing down at any moment.

The truth was, it had already swung. The utter uselessness of it was staggering.

At least in the box, there'd been a method. A purpose, however twisted. That box was meant for one of them, meant to be the coffin of someone. There was no method to a truck barreling through the night. There had been no target on Greg's back and it had hit him anyway, swiping him off his feet into the void. Leaving Nick behind.

Why could he accept that shadow for himself, accept the possibility of his own death... but not Greg's?

Perhaps it had just been a futility created by his own mind, but in that box Nick had felt some amount of control. Yes, it was the minimal control of a squeezed trigger, but it was still his choice. He had even made that choice, and still he'd come out alive somehow. The luck of an instant. But he'd had some control. It was the only way he'd been able to bend the nightmares to his will so quickly, reminding himself that in the end, he had been given a choice.

Greg had not. And even deeper, even darker... none of them had been given a choice this time. Nick had not been given a choice in Greg's fate. He'd simply been forced to watch as it swooped down on the other man.

Nick heard movement in the room and pulled away from the wall. Any moment, Grissom might come through the door and find him there. For all he knew, his supervisor already knew he was there. Certainly Grissom knew he was supposed to be; aside from the lab, Nick had been nowhere else over the past two days.

But that had been when Greg was still asleep, and Nick was sitting alone with only his own thoughts to batter him.

The memory of their argument made the sickness he'd felt before pale in comparison. It meant nothing in the overall scheme of life, _nothing_ , just a stupid, useless fight that could have been avoided. Until now. Greg's accident had given it meaning, given it so many possible inflections.

But for the space of a few inches between truck and body, that fight had nearly been made into the defining moment of his relationship with Greg. The last thing they did before Greg… died.

Nick's throat felt swollen. He stumbled away from the room, hurrying down the hall to the stairs. He'd had a choice then, too, of how to interact with Greg, and he'd chosen anger. The things he'd said sounded so stupid now, so inconsequential. It was Greg, and he'd been doing his best, but Nick hadn't been able to see that, and he'd taken out his own frustrations with the case on him.

And then another human being had intervened before he'd even thought of fixing it, and nearly taken Greg away.

It made no sense that this should suddenly be such an issue; he dealt with the aftermath of people making God-like choices every day. Dead people who perhaps should not have died yet, but had not been given the option because someone else decided to be selfish.

But it was different this time. Things were different with his friend in that hospital bed.

It was absolutely helpless, what he felt. As if he contained the energy and strength of three people, but there was nowhere for it to go. Nothing for him to do. And the rage… Nick shut his eyes tight, trying and failing to redirect. He knew that if he saw that man at that moment, the one behind the wheel of the truck, he would fly at him with no thought to the consequences.

He wondered if they'd felt like this when he'd been under the dirt. They must all have felt this pressure, this need to act with no outlet. To correct what had occurred, make it make sense again. But he knew that was wrong, it was _wrong_ , because there was something intangibly different in how it felt to have Greg be the one in danger. He sought, tried to put his finger on it over and over, but it was indefinable.

It was also frightening in its immensity.

Nick pushed his way through meandering groups of people looking for the right floor, coming in and out of the gift shop, trying to find the payphones. Not caring if he appeared rude or rushed. He was rushed. The hospital's air was too thick, too warm. He couldn't breathe. Sweat broke out on his brow as he hurried through the lobby. Outside, the promise of cooling desert breezes beckoned, the vastness of a world where he and his feelings and troubles were insignificant in comparison to everything else.

He exited through the automatic doors, listening to the hiss and slide as they closed behind him. The breeze hit him full in the face, and he was struck by how dark the night was, despite the lights of the hospital. Nick hunched his shoulders and headed in the direction of his car.

He knew he was moving further and further away from the room where Greg was now awake, tired and talking, trying to explain his situation to himself as best he could. Trying to make sense of senselessness.

Perhaps alone by now, in a strange room with strange blankets, and no one sitting in that chair.

 _Your chair, Nick,_ his mind whispered.

For one instant, he turned, wavering on the edge, knowing he should go back in, knowing he couldn't leave, if he left now he wouldn't come back, and _that_ would be unforgivable. The hospital towered, a hulking creature that had swallowed someone close to him - could have been forever - and still held him inside its maw.

For one instant, Nick almost turned.

In the end, he opened his car door, closed himself inside, and drove away.

 

 **15.**

"Is my blood done yet?"

Hodges lifted his eyebrows and rose to his feet. "I was just about to get it out of the printer. You'd be surprised how smoothly things are going today. But then again, my lab is usually ship-shape."

Nick nodded and shifted on his feet as the DNA tech retrieved the printout. He brandished it with a flourish. "One blood analysis, with time to spare."

Nick took it and stared for a moment without seeing it. He blinked and the numbers focused. Hodges smirked at him, waiting. "It's him. All over the side of that photo. Paper-cuts are the worst."

Nick nodded, but there was no relief, not yet. His chest felt more hollow than usual. He couldn't feel relieved until he knew if this would get them anywhere. "Looks good."

"Shame about Sanders." Hodges leaned on his countertop. "Any idea if... when he'll be back?"

Nick frowned at the other man. "He's in recovery."

Hodges nodded, pursing his lips in that regretful, sanctimonious way of his. "Good, good. I just wondered. Although, he did sign up for field work. And if you can't take the heat, stay—"

Nick stepped forward abruptly, cutting the man off. "Hodges, if you say one word to me about replacing Greg, one _word_... I swear you will be out of this lab by the end of the hour."

Hodges' eyes widened. Nick saw him swallow. But he didn't care to hear whatever answer the man might give. He turned on his heel and left the lab.

 

 **16.**

When Sara didn't come back from her break, Nick went looking. The trace lab was too empty to be alone in; his thoughts filled the void far too eagerly.

He found her in the break room, but she wasn't alone. Nick stopped outside, looking in, knowing they couldn't see him. Sara hunched in her chair at the table, staring at the surface of it as if she were fixed in place. Grissom sat beside her. His hand gripped hers.

"Thank you for going," he said in a low voice.

Sara shook her head fiercely. "I thought I wanted to. I mean, I did want to. I thought—But he just looked so… I don't know."

"I'm sure he was glad to see you, Sara."

"Well, but he wouldn't even be there if not—" She stopped and covered her face with her free hand. Nick could see the quiver in her fingers. "When is he out of there? I don't like hospitals."

"I'm taking him home in a couple days," Grissom said evenly.

She drew her hand out of Grissom's grasp and crossed her arms over her chest protectively. The look on her face was twisted. "He was in a good mood. I mean, he—Considering. You wouldn't even think he'd been—" She forced a laugh, but her chin tightened visibly. "Well. Except for the bandages."

Grissom laid a hand on her back. "Sara. He's going to be fine."

"I checked the truck," she whispered to the table. Her shoulders began to shake. Nick could no longer see her face. "I could have sworn it was empty."

Grissom didn't answer.

"I should have—should have looked harder. But I was so sure—" Her voice broke completely, giving way to quiet, wracking sobs. Grissom rubbed her back.

Nick turned away.

 

 **17.**

Sara's voice had gone flat, beyond businesslike into something much more ominous. "Where did you hide the truck grill, Mr. Simco?"

The man slouched in the chair, the fingers of one hand tapping on the tabletop. There was a tiny smile behind his eyes. Nick studied his face with rising disgust.

"I have no idea what you're talking about, _Ms._ Sidle," Simco said.

"Come on, man," Nick broke in. "We've got the make, the manufacturer, even the type of screw you used to attach it. What's wrong? Super Duty not big enough for you?"

"A guy's gotta have his hobbies," Simco answered with a lazy smile.

"Do those hobbies include killing your girlfriend?" Sara leaned forward as she spoke. The movement was enough to startle Simco into glancing her way.

"Hey," he said after a second. "Bitch got what was coming to her. I won't try to hide that. But no one's saying it was me."

"I'm saying it," Nick countered. Simco's hazel eyes narrowed. Nick saw the man's jaw tighten.

"You get mad at her, Simco?" Sara's voice was sweetly conversational. She cocked her head. "Did it make you angry that she'd moved on with her life and left you behind?"

"Hey, there was nothing to leave behind," he spat back, showing the first real shard of emotion in the last twenty minutes. He sat up in his chair and glared at Sara across the table. "I'm the one who moved out. Good riddance."

"Yeah, you're the one who moved, because she kicked your ass to the curb." Nick entwined his fingers in front of himself and smiled thinly at the suspect. Simco's head slowly swiveled to face him. The man's expression was unreadable. Nick let his smile become a smirk. "But that didn't take, did it? That why you rammed your truck into her house?"

This time Simco snorted. The easiness slipped back into his face again. "You've got no proof of that."

"No, we've got your truck," Sara said. "We've got paint on the inside of her wall that matches the paint you scraped off tearing out of that garage three nights ago. We've also got your tire treads, and dirt from her lawn in your wheel well. We've got pieces of a battering ram of some sort embedded in her wall, the same type of metal as the shavings we took off your truck's bumper and front grill. And that doesn't even cover what we pulled off of her totaled car."

Simco's amusement slid away just as quickly as it had come. He glared at Sara, and was met with nothing but a raised eyebrow. He seemed to consider for a moment, and then shrugged. "Okay. Maybe I ran into her house. She deserved it, let me tell you. Wasn't even her house. We bought it together. And I may have dinged up her car. But that doesn't make me the killer."

Nick squinted at him. "So it was your house, too."

"Yeah." Simco frowned at him. Nick could practically feel the edge of Sara's smile.

"Pretty unique way of dealing with it," she said.

"What the hell does that have to do with anything?" Simco spat.

Sara smirked and leaned forward. "Here's how I see it. You were mad. Not just because she kicked you out, but because she kicked you out of the home you shared. She just pushed you right out of it, and then went on like nothing was wrong. That pissed you off, didn't it?"

The man sneered. "What do you think?"

"I think you crashed into her house because it should have been your house. She didn't love you anymore. You didn't just want to destroy her. You wanted to destroy her life without you in it."

The room went very quiet. Nick could hear the uneven breathing of the man across the table. He watched him. It was so easy to hate this man. They were getting to the meat of it, finally, and Nick could feel it building within him. As if the rest had been preliminary, a preparation for the deadly enormity now settling over them.

"What was it, man?" Nick murmured. "A new car she didn't have to share with you? Did she repaint the house? What did she do to send you over the edge?"

"I don't know what the fuck you're talking about," Simco gritted. He flashed pearly whites at Nick, but there was no humor there. "I didn't kill the bitch. Someone else did that."

"Before or after you knocked her wall in?" Sara stared at Simco like a snake seeking its prey. "Was she looking at you after you killed her? Is that why you cut out her eyes, or was it because you couldn't handle seeing them staring out of a dead body?"

Simco's hands clutched the table's rim. "You got all kinds of theories, don't you?"

"Oh, there's more," Nick stated. "We know you went through the photos. You cut yourself on them, or on the glass from the frames. All those pictures of the two of you. Didn't know she still had them out, did you? You didn't notice until it was too late."

"I don't care about any damn photos," he scoffed, but Nick went on.

"You took one or two, didn't you? Broke the frames and took them away. She loved you. She still had your pictures all over the house. It was so obvious, but you didn't think to look until it was too late. Did you?"

"I know how she felt about me," Simco hissed. "And it wasn't love. Don't twist what wasn't there. Fucking romantic."

"Did you think that this was romantic?" Sara countered. "Tragic death, misunderstood feelings… It's almost like Shakespeare. You end up alive, but you're the one who suffers the most."

"You'd like that, wouldn't you?" Simco said softly. "You'd like me to be sorry for what happened." He shook his head. "I'm not sorry. She got what was coming to her."

"And you saw to that," Nick said.

Simco's sneer widened. "You'll never know."

Revulsion coiled in Nick's belly. "Oh, we know you did it. You had a score to settle with her, and you acted on it. It won't be hard to convince a jury."

The man's smile was positively frightening. "It wouldn't matter if I did it or not. She was a loser. Didn't have any fucking family. Whoever killed her did her a favor by putting her out of her misery."

"Did you a favor, you mean," Nick ground out between his teeth.

Simco leaned back. "I'm not complaining. Stokes. That your name? Well, Stokes, you tell your jury what you've got on me. I couldn't care less. I'm the suffering ex. I found the body first and was too upset to stick around. They won't care about much else by the time I'm done with them."

Nick's jaw began to hurt. "That why you ran? Why you hid?" At Simco's silence, Nick leaned across the table. "Is that why you drove your truck right into a crowd of cops the other night?"

The color of Simco's eyes darkened perceptibly. Without warning, he stood up, scraping his chair back. The orange of his jumpsuit was too vivid. "Just remember, you followed me there. I was doing just fine on my own."

Nick rose to his feet, frayed nerves rocketing closer to the edge. "Hey, sit down."

Simco laughed. "Why should I? Feels good to walk."

Out of the corner of his eye, Nick saw Sara get up as well and slide to the right, still keeping the table between herself and the suspect. Nick inched to the left.

Simco stared at them from across the room. He was nearly backed up against the window. "You know what your problem is? You cops? You can't leave well enough alone. You get involved in everyone else's business and then you don't like what you find."

"Sit down," Nick snapped.

"You should have just let me go. Saved yourself the trouble. I was leaving anyway."

A cold, dark alley flashed across Nick's memory. The sudden roar of the truck's engine seared into his mind, the horrendous scrape as it careened out of the garage. The _sound_ as it hit Greg, knocked him into the wall.

"You were leaving," Nick stated, in a voice he didn't quite recognize.

"I always told her it would be on my terms. Not hers. And then you showed up." Simco raised his hands resignedly. The amusement under his voice was sickening.

Nick could feel his own words tangling in his throat. "You hit one of our guys."

Simco's mouth twisted into an unpleasant sneer. "Yeah, you tell that guy to be more careful next time."

Nick was on him before deciding to do it, jerking his collar and shoving him so hard he smacked against the window. Simco let out a surprised grunt, and in that instant, Sara was behind Nick, grabbing for his shoulders with both hands.

"Nick! Let him go, let go!"

But Nick knew he was stronger. Knew he was angrier. He shook the man, pinning him to the window with one hand.

"I should beat your face in," he seethed.

Simco grinned at him, white-toothed and remorseless. "Why? Just a little misunderstanding between me and my girl."

"No, this time you took from _us!_ " Nick yanked him forward off the glass. "You tried to take something from me, you bastard, you stole from us!"

The man's eyes flickered, skipped over his face. Something larger skittered in his consciousness.

Sara's hands went slack on Nick's shoulders, and he could feel her pause, feel her breathe. Feel her stare, right past him at the man in his grip. Feel her weigh it, put what had happened into context. He knew in that instant that if he beat this man to within an inch of his life, she wouldn't stop him.

Simco stared at him, looking awed - afraid - for the first time.

Nick shoved the man away, feeling his fingers catch on the collar of his jumper, and pushed Sara's hand off his shoulder. Without looking at her - his eyes were only for the sack of shit cowering against the wall - he left the room, giving the door a good slam.

The hallway went quiet, but not for lack of people. One of the younger techs held a sample bag in her hand, and blinked at him as though she'd not realized there were other people in her lab. But it was the stares of the others, the ones he knew, that caught his attention. Their eyes fixed upon Nick there in the hall, blank, yet startled. Like deer. Catherine stood beyond, her hair in a loose ponytail, mouth slack and eyes narrowed.

The door to the viewing room smacked the wall, making the techs jump. Ecklie stormed out, his already thin mouth white-lipped.

"Stokes." His voice trembled with an anger that threatened to swarm right over his keenly crafted assuredness. "You're off the case."

"Fine," Nick snapped. He turned and went down the hallway toward the locker room. "Just fine."

 

 **18.**

Nick went to work. He immersed himself in the lab. Ran blood and hair samples, and poked through Catherine's latest findings. Watched with a distended sense of horror as it became clear that Simco's lawyer was going to plead insanity.

He knew he was watching another one get away from them. If he'd felt that his dismissal had left stones unturned somewhere, had given that man a loophole to slither through, he might have raged as Sara still did in the break room, slopping her coffee onto the floor in large drops.

But the truth was, there wasn't anything left to find. The man had confessed, and then had secured himself another way out. They'd uncovered everything they could and it still wasn't enough.

So Nick worked. Night after night, avoiding the interrogation rooms and Grissom's office. Sometimes he saw Sara, stalking down the halls as if she wanted to put her foot right through the floor and kick whatever was beneath, and Warrick, grim-faced and getting grimmer as each new piece of evidence led to a useless end. Sometimes Catherine came into the room and settled her hand on his shoulder as he worked. She never said anything, and he wondered what she thought was going on in his head, if maybe Simco had touched an old, still-smarting nerve somehow. He wanted to laugh because it wasn't an old nerve.

It was so new, so foreign to him, that Nick could barely think about it for longer than a few seconds before backing away and shutting himself down.

He didn't return to the hospital. The thought of going in and seeing Greg's parents there in his room made his head swim. He knew they were in Vegas; he'd seen them in Grissom's office, the woman stiff-faced, the man full of anxious questions. Nodding, all the time, as if Grissom were giving them the secret to existence. Perhaps he was. He was giving them the assurance of their child's life, after all.

Nick couldn't return to the hospital, and then another day passed and he knew Greg was no longer there.

Wendy walked into the room one day, tired-eyed and pleasantly sunburned, carrying Catherine's newest AFIS printouts. Catherine's domestic violence case had ballooned into something bigger, involving two ex-husbands and a missing son. The tech handed the sheaf of papers to Nick with a drawn look on her face.

"I heard about Greg. How's he doing?"

Nick just looked at her. Wendy shifted uncomfortably. "Grissom said he's out of the hospital. Have you—How is he?"

"I don't know," he answered shortly. He gathered up her printouts and stood. "I'll get these to Catherine."

She nodded, watching him go. Nick left the room as fast as he could.

 _I don't know._

He wasn't sure what was more disturbing: the fact that he didn't know, or that that fact made him so completely furious with himself.

The memory of Simco's shoulder under his hand, the look in his eyes in the interrogation room, came to Nick when he slept, and not as a nightmare. Nick woke just as often from a stupor in the lab as he did in his bed, remembering the force of his shove and the surprised grunt that tore from Simco's throat.

It wasn't the recurring image of Simco's fear that made him regret; it was the deed itself.

He knew he had to stop reacting this way. First with Cassie McBride, now this. Nick massaged his eyes. He was lucky he hadn't been fired outright. Ecklie sat around waiting for this type of thing, as if there weren't more important problems to solve. Nick passed by Grissom's office again and again, wondering each time whether his supervisor had spoken to the assistant director on his behalf. Secured his job again, somehow.

But when he wasn't thinking of Simco, there was nowhere else his thoughts could go, and he thought instead of alleys. Empty truck cabins. Shouting matches in a deserted lab.

One moment that had turned the world sideways.

He knew the night Greg returned to the lab by the change in the air. And Warrick's face, sliding from pained to cheery in one smooth shift. Warrick raised his hand and walked forward toward whoever else was in the locker room, laughing. "Sanders! Welcome back. Nice cane you got there."

And Nick, who had been ready to go in and retrieve his bag and shoes so he could head home, faltered in the hallway. He heard Greg's voice, sounding wearier than it ever had, and shifted to the right until he could see. Not sure if it was a good idea, but suddenly needing to see him.

"It keeps me standing," Greg answered.

Warrick's grin widened. "You look a hell of a lot better than last time I saw you. Aren't you supposed to be bedridden or something?"

Greg's smile was so familiar. "Don't I wish. They had me up and walking as soon as my head was back on." He fingered the metal cane in his left hand. Nick could still see the faded line of bruises there, now more yellowish than purple. "Good for my leg. Or something ridiculous like that."

Warrick reached out. "Here."

Greg leaned against the wall of lockers and passed him his cane. Warrick looked it over, nodding. "Nice. You and Doc Robbins'll have something else to talk about now."

Greg snorted and took the cane back. "My mom was all set to move in. She even bought me chocolates. Alas. Duty calls." He gestured at the rest of the room and Warrick laughed again, sounding lighter than he had in a week.

"You could have had chocolates from your mom? Man, I wouldn't pass that up if I had the option." Warrick slapped his shoulder lightly. Genially. "It's good to have you back, Sanders."

They were about to come out. Suddenly Nick didn't want to see Greg's face and remember it still and silent, and battered. Empty eyes. Red-tinted hair against a white gurney.

He retreated to the darkened fingerprinting lab and waited a good twenty minutes before heading home.

 

 **19.**

The lab was quiet again three days later, and the morning sunlight streamed through the windows like watery milk. Nick rubbed his burning eyes, wishing he were asleep, and yet not wanting to go home.

His shoulders hurt, his legs felt as if they might collapse under him. And the only thing he could think was that he would be right back in this spot in twelve hours, staring down yet another shift.

He hadn't been able to sleep this week. If he'd had any dreams, he couldn't remember them, but still, restfulness eluded him. Just a blank gray slate stretching from the moment he closed his eyes to the moment he woke. Nick slung his work shirt into his locker and sat down on the bench, kneading his temples. His head felt like it wasn't his own. Pressure behind his eyes and his cheekbones—He took a deep breath.

He was glad Warrick was out in the field working overtime, and that Sara had been stuck in the lab with Wendy for the last few hours. He didn't feel like trying to explain his weariness to anyone. Hell, he couldn't even explain it to himself.

 _No, you_ won't _explain it_. Nick grimaced and pressed harder, trying to drive the voice away. He had tried, he honestly had. But every time he made the attempt, he realized that it went so much deeper than the surface he could see. The accident in the alleyway hovered over it all, insinuating itself into his thoughts and weaving in where it couldn't be ignored. Every time he thought about it, Nick felt as if he'd been punched in the stomach.

It just hit so hard, on too many levels to contemplate. And he couldn't bring himself to explain why, because when he did have nightmares, that was the stuff of them.

Nick sighed and focused on the speckled floor beneath his shoes. He really had to get out of here. The lab was muddling his brain, and he wasn't taking the proper time outside of work this week to wash it away. Now it was building. If he could just get a moment to cleanse it all out of himself, like some sort of breaking fever, then he would probably be able to make sense of it. To face it all.

The scrape of a footstep in the doorway brought Nick's head up. A second later, he wished he'd kept it down. Greg stood there, framed by the relative darkness from the hall beyond, leaning on his cane. He gazed at Nick, expression indecipherable. His fingers twitched around the padded handle of the cane.

"There you are." But there was no amusement in it, no sense of satisfaction. Greg's words were flat, edged with disappointment. Nick could see him chewing his lower lip, as if trying to keep his mouth from giving him away.

"Greg," he said weakly. The younger man's face was still too pale. As if Nick were looking at a sick person. His eyes still held their smudges, and his shoulders looked frail underneath the material of his button-down shirt. Nick winced. They weren't frail, they were just as they always had been, but somehow they looked fragile. Wasted.

"Haven't seen you in a while." The words were clipped. Nick frowned, hearing the tiniest tip of sarcasm.

"Been pretty busy here," he answered lamely. Damn it, but it was still making him feel like shying away, just having Greg in the same room. What was the matter with him? He should be happy to have Greg up and walking, returning to work none the worse for wear. But all he could think was how close he'd come to the other side of that coin. Greg's physical presence held the shadow of that side, the very existence of the possibility, as if the man were carrying it around with him. Like that cane.

Greg nodded, a swift jerk of his head. He looked down, and when his head rose again, his expression was both sad and angry. "Yeah. I know it has. I've been around."

Nick looked at him sharply, stung, and having no right to be so. He couldn't think of a single thing to say in answer. Instead he concentrated on his shoes, tying up the laces of his sneakers, wondering what twist of fate had made his timing so bad tonight.

He'd managed to keep to himself for the last few days. The law of averages had to catch up with him sometime.

He heard Greg exhale, a short burst through his nose. "Well. I'm feeling just fine, thanks."

Nick looked up before he could stop himself. "Greg… That's not how it is. I just…" Words failed him again. He shrugged, disgusted with himself. Damn. Why hadn't he asked? It had been the one coherent question pressing in on his mind the entire time, and yet he hadn't done a thing to obtain the answer to it.

"Thank you, Nick, for explaining it to me," Greg said, and this time there was no way to mistake the ire in his tone. Nick frowned in spite of himself.

"Something you want to say to me, Sanders?"

Greg's mouth opened and shut. He looked at Nick incredulously. Came through the door, toward the bench. His cane thumped dully on the floor. Nick repressed a shiver.

"It's like you changed shifts," Greg said abruptly.

Nick blinked. Greg glared down at him, brow furrowed, breathing harder than normal.

"What?"

Greg rolled his eyes, then shut them as if gathering patience. "I have been back for nearly a week. Not all the time, I grant that, Nick, but enough to where I should have at least warranted a hello from you. I don't know, maybe I'm being too self-involved again, is that it?"

Nick stood up, and Greg's eyes followed him without flinching. "What are you talking about?"

The younger man shook his head. It was almost disdainful. That emotion on Greg's face felt a little too raw in all the wrong places. "Just get it off your chest, Stokes, whatever it is," he snapped. "Quickly, like pulling a band-aid off. It hurts less."

Greg was right there, not three feet in front of him, with awareness in his irises again, energy vibrating through his limbs, and anger there, as plain as day. Alive.

He wanted… to touch him. To reach out and—

"No," Nick muttered. He glanced down and saw Greg's cane. His gut curled at the reminder.

When he looked up, he found Greg's eyes boring into him. His mouth dried and he gestured at the cane, suddenly furious with its presence. "No, I'm not going to start with you, Greg."

Greg's face twisted, cheeks blossoming red. His fingers clenched around the cane's handle. "What, Nick? This?"

He pulled the cane up and tossed it across the small space between them. Nick's hand opened instinctively and caught it.

"Well, I don't need it," Greg spat. His mouth tightened visibly and Nick saw his eyes flash. "Maybe you'll be able to face me better without it."

Before he knew it, irritation had clicked home. Nick's jaw clenched on its own. He gripped the cane in one hand. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"You tell me!" Greg swayed, bracing himself against the bank of lockers to his right. "I never thought you were one to hold onto things, Nick, but I'm thinking I was wrong."

"You don't expect me to hold onto this?" Nick smacked the cane down on the bench and straightened, breathing hard. It was just too much. The week, the accident, the lack of sleep, and now Greg, right when Nick was at his weakest. "You nearly got killed!"

"I know that," Greg returned heatedly. "I was there, if you'll remember."

Nick shook his head impotently. He turned and jerked his bag out of his locker, slamming it shut. "I do remember."

Greg's face shuttered oddly. He looked to the side as if searching for something, and then snapped his attention back to Nick. "Why didn't you come to the hospital?"

"I did," Nick hissed. He opened his mouth to go on, but Greg cut him off.

"Oh, I know you went, you came with me! And then you left? You just—"

"I was there!" Nick said hotly. He scrubbed a hand over his head. "I went to the hospital, I saw you there. But I couldn't—" _Couldn't sit and watch you breathe couldn't picture a paler face on a slab couldn't be reminded over and over again that you'd been hurt._

 _Couldn't face that I couldn't do anything about it._

"I couldn't stay," he whispered. Turned away.

"You couldn't stay."

Nick glared down at his hands as they fumbled for the strap of his bag. Greg's hand shot out and latched onto his arm, jerking his attention back.

"You were the last thing I remember, Nick, in the ambulance, leaning over me like you had a vested interest in what happened." Greg's face had contorted, suppressing something else with the anger. "But then you're nowhere to be found. I guess your concern only lasts as long as it takes to make sure I'm still breathing."

Nick stepped forward. "You don't know what you're talking about," he grated through clenched jaw. His heart was hammering, as much at the mention of Greg not breathing as at the tension between them.

Now the sadness was creeping forward. "Is this because of what happened before? Are you still mad at me for that, Nick, because if you are, I just want to let you know how stupid—" Greg bit down on whatever he'd been about to say.

Nick shook his head. "That is not what this is about!"

"Then what? What? Look, if you have a problem with me, I'd rather just know about it so I can stop thinking it's something I can fix!"

"It's not you," Nick snapped. And then was floored by how right and wrong that was. He stifled a hiss as the events in the alley rushed up on him again. Not knowing what was happening until the truck was nearly out of the garage, Warrick's shout, the crack of Greg's head against the brick, the uncontainable fear that had guided his hands to Greg's face.

The look in Greg's eyes, as if he were watching the edge slide forward to suck him under.

And he'd been completely helpless to stop it.

Nick's hand found Greg's shoulders, gripped, and pushed hard. The younger man let out a hiss as his back came into contact with the bank of lockers. He stared at Nick, wide-eyed. Nick held him there, suddenly unable to keep his hands from squeezing, feeling the warmth beating through Greg's shirt, the proof that he was alive, that he'd survived.

"Why didn't you turn around?" he said helplessly, shaking Greg, gripping him by the shoulders. "God, why didn't you—"

Greg's eyes opened wider, and then narrowed frighteningly, and Nick saw the last of that hope die right in front of him, overwhelmed by the fury. "You think I messed up out there? That I caused—"

Nick had to shut him up. Stop the painful words that kept pouring forth, and he didn't even realize he had done it with his own mouth until he heard Greg's grunt of surprise. His mouth tasted salty and sweet all that same time. Greg's lips parted and Nick needed—He swiped his tongue inside, touched lips, teeth, another tongue. Greg's hands clutched his arms, fingers spasming against his skin, digging deep. Nick sought for something he couldn't even visualize - Greg made some sound in his throat - and suddenly his hands were pressing Greg against the lockers and his head was tilted and he could _taste_ the sound, feel it in his head and chest and hips and fingers. Greg gasped; his hand trembled, then Nick felt him grip the back of his neck - their teeth clacked together, Greg's body gave a helpless shiver under his palms—

And Nick stumbled backward.

Couldn't _think_.

Greg gaped at him, breathing hard, inches away. His exhalation hit Nick's lips. He blinked rapidly. Nick heard him swallow, a strangled sound. "Nick…"

He let go of him and backed up on shaking legs. His mind was a haze, fogged and indistinct, but he could see Greg collapsed there against the lockers, staring at him as if there were nothing else in the entire world.

"I—"

Greg's face was far too open, far too haunted. Nick fumbled, grabbed his bag off the floor where it had fallen, and lurched for the door. Greg stirred behind him.

"Nick." The word was wounded, cracked.

He fled the locker room, and didn't stop to process until he was pulling into his own driveway twenty minutes later.

 

 **20.**

The evening air felt too hot on Nick's cheeks. He forced himself to slow down, to measure his steps across the lot to the lab. His knees felt shakier than ever, as if they'd been pulled apart and reattached incorrectly, and he might as well have been running for the speed of his heart against his ribs.

 _Breathe_. But he'd been doing that ever since that morning, and he had a feeling it would make no difference now either.

He had to go in. He just had to walk in through those doors, find Catherine, and get to work. Just as he had every other night. There was plenty to do; he'd have no time to think about… anything. Just the case.

Nick's feet took him willingly enough across the lot and through the lab's front doors, and then familiarity hit him, beeps and chatter, the muffled _wump_ of shots through the open door to ballistics down the hall. Archie strode briskly past him, giving him a harried smile, and Nick's chest loosened.

This… He knew this place, these people. There were a lot of them, and somehow he'd forgotten that. The lab was barely organized chaos half the time, and Nick could very well lose himself in it, work alone tonight and not worry about who he might have to see.

His professionalism chose that moment to speak up as well, and Nick felt utterly foolish for losing sight of it. There was no place for his mistakes here. God knew he'd already given enough time to them that morning. Nick felt his neck flushing and lengthened his stride, avoiding the locker room entirely and making for Catherine's office.

He managed to ignore the DNA lab until he was nearly on top of it, and then he made another mistake and looked inside. He only had an instant to be relieved at how empty it was before Sara rounded the corner ahead of him, with Greg just behind her.

It didn't matter that Greg hadn't seen him yet; the taste of his mouth sprang to Nick's tongue as if it were fresh. He halted abruptly, stumbling, nearly tripping a ballistics tech coming down the hall. His throat closed and he couldn't get enough air.

At that precise moment, Greg looked up and saw him.

Nick couldn't think. The image of Greg's slack mouth and heaving chest rose unbidden, wiping everything else out. He swallowed hard, staring at the younger man, tasting and smelling and feeling him all over again.

 _Oh God._

Nick turned and hurried back down the hall, not giving himself time to register the expression on Greg's face. Not giving himself time to do much of anything but run. He found Grissom's office and let himself in, shutting the door behind him. His supervisor glanced up from his desk, a slight frown on his face.

"Nick?" Grissom's frown deepened. He set the criminal profiles he'd been studying down on his desk and leaned forward. "Are you alright?"

"I—" No. He wasn't alright, he hadn't been this far from alright in a long time, except for that very morning when he… when he'd… "I need to ask you for the night off."

Grissom's eyebrows shot up. "You came all the way into work just to ask for the night off?"

Nick shook his head, feeling as if his very bones were jittering. "No, I… I just think I may be getting sick, that's all."

Grissom's attention flicked toward the door behind Nick for an instant. "I saw you walk past a minute ago. You looked alright to me."

Nick shut his eyes, too unsettled to care that he was lying to Grissom. But it wasn't really a lie. He honestly didn't think he could function in the lab today. "It's been such a long couple of weeks," he said, as steadily as he could. "I just think it's all catching up to me."

That wasn't a lie either, but he knew his interpretation of events was nowhere near the one he was asking the other man to believe. He'd gotten away from himself—No, he had let it all steamroll right over him earlier, and now he couldn't think where he could stand, where there was stable enough ground to sit and figure everything out.

Grissom nodded, but his brows were knit together. He looked Nick over critically. "Well, it certainly is understandable," he said at last. "Are you feeling sick?"

Nick looked away. "I don't… feel myself tonight."

Grissom nodded again, once. "Alright. Catherine's got her end covered, as far as I know. I'll just send her Warrick if she needs anyone."

Still, he scrutinized Nick, absorbing information. Nick stared back. If Grissom kept this up, he wouldn't even need to pretend to be unwell anymore.

At last, the older man sat back. "Go home, Nicky. It _has_ been a rough week."

Nick nodded, feeling weak in the vicinity of his knees again. He was about to turn for the door, but Grissom's voice stopped him.

"Nick? Greg was looking for you earlier."

Too keen; words slowly spaced for maximum effect. Nick knew he'd paled by the way Grissom's brow creased. Another long second ticked by, and that strange sorrow crawled over the older man's face. "Nicky, have you talked to him since he got back?"

"Grissom," Nick tried, hating the fragility of his voice. He shut his eyes and opened them again. "I don't…"

But there was nothing else waiting. He faltered, and Grissom's eyes widened, almost boyish in their intensity. "Nick, tell me what's wrong," he said in a quiet voice.

Oh, he couldn't stay here, he could feel his control slipping. "Grissom, I can't. Not now."

His supervisor just looked at him somewhat sadly. Confusion, something he rarely saw on the man's face. Nick nodded shakily, then turned, grasped the doorknob, and let himself out. He didn't even look back down the hallway toward the DNA lab, instead making for the front of the building again. He knew that if Grissom could stare through solid walls, he would have been watching him the entire way.

 

 **21.**

His coffee had gone cold some time ago. Not that it had been very hot to begin with, but it smelled nice, and Nick cupped the mug close to himself and stared out the window at the slowly filling parking lot. Families coming in for a late dinner, people he recognized from the day shift hurrying in to pick up take out before heading home. Nick edged his mug around in a circle, watching the condensation fade off the table top.

Frank's was crowded tonight, but it made Nick feel sheltered somehow, sitting at a small corner table nursing a cup of coffee he had no intention of drinking. Another one of his "homes," filled with comforting smells and the easy drone of voices. He knew he could sit here for as long as he wanted and think, and he wouldn't be asked to leave.

Ah, the perks of being a regular.

But no matter how comfortable the place was or how long he sat at that table, it didn't lessen the problem building inexorably in front of him.

How was he ever going to function at work now? He didn't want to have the obligatory chat to explain his actions, though now he supposed he would have to have two of them: one with Grissom, and one with Greg. Just the thought of those conversations was thick and oppressive, a massive hurdle to scramble over. He needed time to think on his own first, to figure out some sort of contingency plan.

But a contingency plan seemed so trivial next to the real dilemma: the shift in his emotions awed him, a roiling, overwhelming knot that made sense and yet did not. He couldn't make a plan about how to work in the same space as Greg; he couldn't even sort out where his feelings began and ended yet.

Neither could Nick pinpoint the exact shift, and he suspected - a thought that made him feel rather ill - that there hadn't been one. It was much too muddled to be so clear-cut; no, this spoke of the passage of time, of slow development. Something he hadn't even recognized for what it was until that morning.

Somehow, during all of his not-thinking-about-it, Nick had thought about it anyway. His brain had gone on ahead, perhaps during those spans of dreamless sleep, had put it all into the correct order, and had neglected to tell him how his perceptions concerning Greg Sanders had changed.

But when had he stopped thinking of Greg as "the kid" and started thinking of him as…

Nick drew a sharp breath.

Now it was a new kind of box, one he had trapped himself inside of, and Greg outside.

He grimaced. "Nice snare to set for yourself, Stokes."

The waitress arrived with a fresh pot of coffee, and Nick asked for another mug. He waited while she poured, watching the night grow darker outside.

He couldn't stay out of the lab forever. He didn't want to, anyway. It was his job, one he loved, despite the pitfalls and the occasional blows to his complacency. Nick sighed. If only they didn't have to strike so hard, and so swiftly. If only they didn't constantly have the potential to take so much away from him.

But that which might be lost was that which was risked. Nick put so much into his work that he couldn't really be surprised at the enormous toll that threatened. Only now it was much more horrifying because it wasn't just himself he risked losing anymore.

He knew the same question of risk met Greg every night that he got up to come to work. But it didn't make him feel any better about it.

Was this what it was like? Nick knew in that instant that he was about to register the staggering possibility of loss concerning the others as well. His friends, people who were almost his family. He just hadn't managed to put it into context before, and now he knew he could never avoid it again.

And none of this was helping him deal with the issue of working alongside Greg, Nick thought, frustrated.

He was in the midst of glaring into his fresh cup of coffee when the sound of a shuffling step very close to him made him turn. Greg stood a few feet away, looking down at him. His hand rested on the handle of his cane.

"Hey," Greg said. Nick looked down at his cup and then up again in one movement. Greg's hair was tousled as usual, a bit on the shaggier side. His face was open, mouth twitched upward as it often was, but it looked different to Nick, knowing he'd kissed that mouth, tasted inside, been close enough to smell Greg's cologne and sweat. The memory of a hand squeezing the nape of his neck, a moan he could feel and a mouth opening readily beneath his, panged in Nick's chest. He dragged his eyes away.

"Hey."

Greg hovered there beside him, not a hand's reach from him. "Mind if I sit?"

Nick shook his head and Greg came even closer, edging around to the opposite chair. A spasm crossed his features; the younger man winced, folding himself into the chair with some difficulty, left leg coming to rest cocked out toward the window.

Nick couldn't help himself. "You alright?"

Greg turned a withering stare on him. "You pushed me into the wall."

Nick felt emptiness to rival whatever had come before. Was everything he did twisted when it involved Greg? He looked down at his coffee. "I'm sorry, Greg."

So inadequate.

Greg looked at him for a long time; Nick could feel his eyes. Then there was a soft snort. He looked up and saw that Greg's lips were faintly quirked. His eyes flicked up and down over Nick's face. "It's okay, Nick. It was the wrong side."

His hand hovered over his right hip and Nick felt the humor like a breath of air. He looked away, feeling his own mouth twitch.

"Good to know."

Greg made a sound of agreement, and then the silence fell again. Nick flinched, glad he was looking at his drink instead of at the other man.

"How's your leg?" he asked finally.

Greg's eyebrows rose and he glanced down at his left side. "Metal pins."

"What?"

Another smile cut across the younger man's face. "It has metal pins in it now."

Nick couldn't summon the humor this time, and just looked back at his coworker. Greg's demeanor sobered. "It hurts. Vicodin cocktail's wearing me out. I feel nauseated half the time. And I get to sit like this."

He gestured at the strange angle of his leg with one hand. Nick looked for the bruising where his wrist was visible beneath the end of his sleeve, but could see nothing except pale skin.

"Sounds like fun," he murmured. Greg's eyes sparked.

"Oh, it is." He gazed out the window. Nick saw his throat work as he swallowed. For a second he wondered about the stitches in Greg's scalp, if he'd had to shave the back of his head for them. He couldn't tell from where he sat. Greg turned and caught him looking. His eyes flicked over Nick's face. "About last night."

"What?" But Nick knew what he was talking about. It was all over his face.

Greg shrugged, back to his jovial self again. The shift was amazing. "Hey, your night is my day," he offered playfully.

"This morning," Nick corrected on a sigh. He hadn't wanted to be here yet. Not for a few days at least. But there was no getting away from it now, not with Greg sitting there, eyes begging for some sense of understanding.

"I don't…" He shook his head. "I can't really explain it easily, Greg."

"I think I'd be disappointed if you did," came the response. Nick smiled fleetingly at his coffee.

"I can't even sort it out for myself yet," he muttered.

"Well," Greg said after a moment, "you kissed me."

Nick grimaced at him. "Yeah. I remember that part, Greg."

"So do I." There was something else in his tone this time, something thicker, less controlled. Greg inhaled deeply and let it out. "So."

"So."

They sat for several seconds, just looking at each other. Finally, Nick decided to take a stab at it. "I needed to know that you were still there."

Greg looked puzzled. "I was standing right in front of you."

"Still alive," Nick said carefully, noting the way the other man stiffened. Something quickened in his expression.

"Then you weren't… angry at me."

Nick shook his head, snorting softly. "Water under the bridge, man."

Greg nodded, a little too quick. "I thought… Oh, I don't know what I thought."

Nick shuddered, still reeling from the after effects of voicing it aloud. He knew there was more to say, that he should try to reconcile the details with Greg, but he had stretched himself too much in the last two days, and he couldn't summon the energy to ponder anything except how strange it felt to be having this conversation at all.

Greg's pensiveness was palpable and Nick waited, wondering what would come next. Just having the other man near him was doing odd things to his self-awareness. He could feel each of Greg's breaths as if he were the one breathing them. When had he become so conscious of it?

At last Greg spoke again, gently. "Why didn't you come to see me? In the hospital."

Nick stirred. "I was there," he managed. Greg's lips pressed together and then parted. He inclined his head.

"You know what I mean."

Nick gripped his mug in both hands. This was the part he had hidden from, the one that was still tangled up. But it all centered around one truth which was very, very hard to face.

"I thought you were going to die."

Greg's body stilled and he stared straight at Nick. For once - maybe because there were no strings, no loopholes in his words this time - Nick had no trouble meeting his eyes. "I thought it was going to happen right there, and I was going to hold you while your life went right out of your body. It would happen _in my arms_. Do you— Do you even see—"

There really weren't any words to convey it. Nick didn't deal with the living; that was depressing in and of itself, that he barely had the fortitude to imagine facing such a horrible scenario before this one. He'd held an injured person before, certainly. And he could find a person from a spot of sweat, name a criminal from the way his left eye twitched. But he couldn't hold onto a life? Couldn't hold onto Greg's life.

He'd crawled out of the abyss once himself, but now he could see too plainly that that had also been out of his control.

Greg was family, Greg was... more than family. And Nick finally knew - had known, listening to the air rushing through Greg's throat and feeling the sickening softness of battered flesh under his fingers - that he didn't have the power to save that or to protect it, to hold onto it. It wasn't a test tube to study or a DNA strand to decode. It was life and a personality, memories braided into a unique, living, breathing body, as fragile as the sunlight or the wind. The instant it was gone, it was irretrievable, vanished forever. A spark, smothered.

A hundred other sparks in love with that one spark, left alone to burn in the darkness.

Nick shut his eyes.

"You think you're the only one who's felt that?"

He found Greg staring hard at him. Brown eyes wide and focused, full of vibrancy. He'd seen them without that vitality and the difference was startling all over again, painful in a place too deep to dig out or even touch.

Greg's head shook weakly. "I've seen what happens on this job. Grissom and Warrick and… Sara…" His shoulders hunched helplessly. "I felt it when Lindsey was taken, and Catherine was nearly in pieces, and Brass, when Brass was shot, I knew all about helplessness, Nick, because you're right, there's nothing you can do but wait. They take it right out of your hands. And then, you… _You_ , Nick…"

He looked up at Nick sharply, but did not say any more. Nick watched him struggle and realized with a start that he couldn't say any more. Greg's eyes hollowed painfully, and Nick saw the box again, this time with himself in it, and understood.

"I've never felt so helpless," Greg whispered. "So much at another person's whim. I mean, he died. And that still didn't fix it. You were still down there."

"Did you…" He had to ask. "Did you feel like…" Nick gestured between the two of them, and for a moment he was afraid he'd have to explain. But awareness flickered into Greg's eyes. He shook his head.

"No. Not like this. Not then. But it didn't matter."

No, it didn't. Nick cleared his throat. He had more to say now, the elusive words had arrived at last. And for the first time, he knew what he wanted without the heaviness of his confusion resting on top. But it would still be difficult to articulate.

Everything with Greg was.

He gestured at nothing, just a small sweep of the table, the restaurant, and the world. "I've always thought of us as a family. Gris and Catherine, they're like the parents, and Sara and Rick and you and me..."

"The kids," Greg finished.

Nick looked down and summoned his thoughts. "I don't want to think like that anymore."

Greg's gaze was riveting. No longer searching, but... Nick exhaled and just looked back, through eight years to a moment when he hadn't known this man, and couldn't imagine what it had been like.

Greg's hand moved, slid across the table. Hesitated for the briefest of instances, and then covered Nick's where it rested on the tabletop.

"Sara said something to me once, right after my first autopsy." Greg's voice was low, reflective. His thumb traced over the back of Nick's hand. "Doc Robbins told me we were only flesh, a body and parts. Not in so many words, but… Then Sara said, 'It's what you do with it that counts.'"

He looked up slowly, and Nick felt a strange flutter in his chest. The moment stretched, his hand cupped there under Greg's, the scent of cooling coffee teasing at his senses.

"Do you want to come over?" Greg asked simply. Softly.

Nick swallowed. Greg's hand was warm. He'd never registered warmth in this way, through this touch. "Won't that hurt you?"

Greg shrugged, smiling a little half-smirk. "We'll manage. We're young and innovative."

This time Nick did laugh. It was small, but it was still a laugh. Greg's hand tightened around his.

"Just... slow. Okay?"

Nick felt his cheeks redden. "You know, you've gotten pretty wise lately."

Greg grinned. "Had a good teacher."

Nick couldn't have agreed less. But he didn't say it. He turned his hand over, meeting Greg's, palm to palm. Fingers tensed around his.

Unexpectedly, Greg pointed at his coffee. "You really going to drink that?"

Nick let out a breath. "No." He pushed the mug away. Greg's eyes gleamed in amusement. He pulled his hand away and rose haltingly, leaning on his cane. Nick got up as well, concerned, but Greg straightened without incident and rolled his eyes. "Can't quite get the hang of this thing."

Nick busied himself with turning out quarters and bills from his pockets, piling them next to the still-full mug. Greg waited silently, and then edged through the narrow space between their table and the next. Nick let him go by and followed closely, heart beginning to beat faster.

They were almost to the door, almost out into the liminal light of dusk and the wind off the desert, when Greg turned back.

"So... Brass."

"What about him?"

"Does that make Brass some sort of grouchy, jaded uncle?"

Nick laughed, feeling the last of the weight lift. "You know, Greggo? That's absolutely perfect."

~end~


End file.
